Silver Tongue
by TheRedPenofDoom87
Summary: Complete! When she's offered the chance to save her sister from a hellish imprisonment, Kayla Silverfox makes a deal with the devil. She's given the task of keeping a loose cannon mutant calm. But no one,not even Kayla, could see how it would end
1. The End

**_So....I went to go see the new X-Men movie last week partly because I love the X-men, I have very fond memories of watching the t.v show when i was a child with my dad and partly cuz i love Hugh Jackman (I mean really who doesn't? and who else could play Wolverine the way he does? UH NO ONE!) and partly because i wanted to see how they would handle Wolverine's back story..._**

_**I remembered vaugely that Wolverine loved someone and then she died and I really liked how they did the whole twist with Kayla Silverfox, so I got to thinking...what was she thinking the whole time and that's where "SilverTounge**_**_" came from. I'm trying new things with my writing so let me know what you think._**

**_Dislaimer: I own nothing at all, not even the quote._**

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Prologue: The End

_"**I must be cruel, only to be kind,"~ "Hamlet"**_

Emma's honey blonde hair bobs like a beacon as she moves into the darkness. Turning around for a moment, her dark blue eyes find mine and I can't hide from her. Her lower lip droops, quivering, unsure for the first time in a long time. The tears she wants to shed are hovering there making her blue eyes seem brighter. They remind me suddenly of rain.

I can see how she's being torn. Torn between helping me and helping the others. They look to her now that he's gone. Maybe I've gone temporarily deaf but I can't hear them calling her name over and over as we stand here memorizing each other's faces. But she won't come back to me, she can't. I've told her to help the others and made it an order.

She knows it now. This is the last time we will ever see each other. She opens her mouth to say something. _Don't do this!_, _I need you! Don't leave me!_..._I love you…._

I give my last gift to her. A smile. If I could I would turn back the clock and tell her everything, tell her I love her a thousand times more than I did but I can't. I can't rewind time. It can only go forward from here.

But she turns quickly, grabbing the nearest mutant and begins herding them down a tunnel. She doesn't look back at me as they disappear into the unknown. She's lost to me now as she has been for the last three years. My baby sister….

I can't hold up the façade anymore and I fall to my knees as the pain bites deep into my right side. A few renegade tears leak out of my eyes as I squeeze them shut against the throbbing. I try to regulate my breathing, keep it even and deep but even that spreads the pain farther and farther across my middle. Bit by bit, the pain recedes and I breathe easier. When the spasm has passed for the moment, I pull my protective hand away and feel the hot blood drip between my fingers.

I know it's the end but no, my fogged brain insists. No…NO! NO! Not yet! I've given him up once and I'm not going to do it twice!

Gritting my teeth against the pain, I follow the path of destruction that he's left for me to follow. As I run/limp, I can feel the seconds tick away. Each tick is louder than the last. Really, though, I think to myself, my clock stated ticking away six years ago in a bar in the Canadian Rockies, the night I met him…


	2. The Hook

_**I come bearing the second chapter! I hope you like it!**_

**_Disclaimer: I own nothing at all._**

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_Six years earlier_

Chapter1: The Hook

"_**I like a man who grins when he fights."~ Winston Churchill**_

Remember the objective, I kept telling myself as I ground a permanent hole in the bar's wooden table with my fingernail. Remember the objective. Stay focused, I said to myself. Keep the objective in mind at all times. It was the only way I'd get through this-the only way we'd get through this. It was all I could do.

I pushed the long empty glass toward Carl, the bar tender, and handed him what I owed. It was just water from now on for me. The room spun about half an hour ago, signaling that it was time to call it quits for the night. Really, I've never been much of a drinker.

"What's with the long face, Kayla?" Carl wondered as he took the money, smiling at the tip I left him.

I shook my head, and glanced behind me. "Long day is all."

Carl, who looked old enough to be my father, smiled at me. "Pretty girl like you shouldn't have a long face, hear?" He took my empty glass and hid it under the bar; a magician's trick.

I pulled a smile up to my lips and gave him a salute. "Yes, sir."

"Pretty girl like you should have a man to keep under her thumb." Carl noted, gesturing toward the almost full bar. Really this was as good as it was going to get; most of the town was there that night and I could name every one of them. Paul and Delia were curled up in a corner to themselves. Robert and Jeremy were bringing the new guys into the fold by drinking them under the table. They all crowded together in one corner of the roughly hewn bar, their shadows shifting in the low lights as they laughed and joked and generally just made a ruckus.

"Don't see one to have," I laughed.

Carl just smiled. "He'll pop up eventually. Hey make sure you say hi to your sister next time you talk to her, huh?" He handed me a glass of water without another word as "Come Together" by the Beatles cackled over the radio.

"'Course Carl!"

I went to find an out of the way table to wait it out. I've already been here for a few hours and they said the bar would be the first place he'd stop by. I took a deep breath and let it out, trying to calm my rising fears and worries. When that didn't work, I started to chant my mantra: remember the objective, remember the objective. Form no attachments, nothing. Keep your head down and maybe we'll both get out alive.

"_Just keep an eye out for him," the Colonel said with a smirk during the briefing. "You won't miss him."_

_He handed me a sheaf of papers; photos, bios, military papers. Most of the photos spilled out in an array of violence and destruction, his face angry and fierce and…sad. War had been his life, it looked like and he was very good at it._

_But one photo caught my eye. Half hidden behind a few of the more violent ones, it was a slick black and white candid shot of him not looking at the camera. Someone must have snuck up on him; maybe it was a friend, maybe even Stryker. But he looked calm, even relaxed. There was just the hint of a smile in his face. Even though he wasn't even looking at the camera, I still wanted to see the whole of his face, it gave everything away. I kept wondering what he was thinking at the moment and why he was so calm in this particular photo and so angry in the others._

"_This is him?" I asked, holding up the photo._

"_That is James Logan," Stryker nodded. "That's your target."_

_The door clicked open and another man walked in, but this one's menace emanated from him. It was more palpable than Stryker's which came from his official military uniform and his cold smile._

_But this man…monster, of the two I'm not sure which it is, but this one's terror oozed from his pores and his demon grin. He was taller, broader, just plain meaner than the man I was hunting for. But this one's stance seemed to exude a real threat. He sat across from me, a sarcastic smirk on his lips which revealed those horrible canines._

"_And this is Victor Creed. Logan's brother." Stryker smiled. "He's going to be a real asset to you."_

_Victor scrutinized for a moment me like a mountain lion stalking a limping deer and then nodded in approval. "Jimmy likes brunettes. She'll do." He said to Stryker. Then to me, he grinned: "Just don't make it too obvious. Jimmy's got a good nose for liars. Make him..." He rubbed his chin in thought. "Work for it. It's no fun if there's not a bit of a chase involved."_

I jumped as shadow hovered over my table. "Kayla…" I looked up to see Parker, an old friend. But he had a little too much to drink and he was wobbling a little. "How're you, baby?"

I rolled my eyes at him and leaned back in the chair. "Oh, Parker, honey…No." I didn't want to deal with this using….the other method. It could be a little ostentatious and that was the last thing I needed. "You've had enough…"

"Oh c'me on, Kalyia…" he stumbled over my name and placed his hand over mine. He leaned down until we were on the same eye-level. He swayed drunkenly forward and came close enough that I could smell the scotch on his hot breath.

Just as I was about to summon the will to instruct him to walk home, there was a low growling voice behind him: "I think the lady said she wasn't interested, Bub."

I let go of Parker and he stumbled away to reveal the man from the picture: a burly man who looked to be in his late twenties, early thirties. His dog tags revealed themselves and glinted in the low lights of the bar. Despite the menacing snarl on his lips and massive veined fists, he was the man from the picture.

"I…I…." Parker only stammered at him, mouth agape. When he couldn't find anything to say back, he scooted away, terror draining from him like a slowly leaking balloon.

I glanced up at my target. "I was handling that just fine, thank you." I sneered and flicked my hair back over my shoulder, feigning annoyance. While on some level it was nice to be championed every once in a while, Victor told me not to go too easy on him.

One dark eyebrow rose along with a cheeky half-smile that didn't fit with his other qualities. Especially with the memories of the pictures I remember. "Oh really?"

"Yes, really."

Without being invited to, he sat across from me. The Colonel was right, though, this man had a certain presence that couldn't or wouldn't be ignored. "And how were you going to handle that?" He asked, resting one thick forearm on the table.

I leaned back, arms crossed. "I was just about to tell him to walk it off. Parker's a friend."

He said "Yeah right," with a small chuckle.

"Really." I insisted, slightly stung by his smugness. "I'm good at dealing with people. Besides." I shot him a glance. "Not all problems can be solved with a show of force."

"Touché, Miss…" he paused for my name.

"Kayla. Kayla Silverfox. And you?" I asked even though I knew his name already: James Logan, part of Weapon X, half brother to Victor Creed.

"Logan," is all he said.

"So what brings you to my neck of the woods, Mr. Logan?" I let the sarcasm color my voice. "All the big city lights?"

His dark brown eyes flicked upwards to meet mine. "Retirement. Military. Wouldn't mind a quiet place for a while. And it's just Logan."

"No 'Major' or 'Colonel' or 'Captain' or anything?" I asked. I could see the catch when I said 'Captain' and I knew I had him.

"Nope. Just Logan."

"Fair enough," I shrugged.

"So, how did you get here Ms. Silverfox?" he grinned and it was infectious.

"It's Kayla. I've been here for about eight or nine years. I work at the school." He opened his mouth to say something but I got up, grinning like I'd just heard a private joke.

_Always leave 'em wanting more_! I remembered what my mother always used to say and stood up. "Actually, I have to go. I've got an early day tomorrow." All the while, I saw the slight fall of that cheeky half-smile. Check-mate. "I'll see you around, Logan." I grabbed my coat.

"Can I get that in writing?" I heard him call as I walked away.

I only half turned and gave him a matching smile. "Nope, sorry. No such luck."

I didn't look back as I walked through the shifting lights and out into the fall evening. Instantly the temperature dropped about fifteen degrees. Summer had definitely left for the season. Hiking my collar up against the cold, I headed for home.

* * *

Home, I realized for the umpteenth time since Mom died, has lost its homey feel. Sure, everything was where it should have been. The fridge quietly humming like a cat and the familiar flags fluttering in the draft from the partially open window in the living room. I flicked on the lights, afraid of my own shadow. Tonight of all nights, the shadows that I used to find familiar now lurk with the same threat from Stryker and Creed.

As I passed Emma's door, which had been closed since she left a few weeks ago, I pressed a hand to it, hoping to feel a little of sliver of her. But it was only a door.

"_Kayla! Seriously! Paula'n'Delia are gonna be here any minute!" Emma called from the front door._

"_Come on! Let me get one picture of you with all your stuff before you leave me!" I ran toward her, camera in tow. _

_Emma rolled her eyes, the way an eighteen year old should. "That is so lame!"_

"_Emma…" I tried the puppy dog eyes, it normally worked on her._

"_NO!"_

_I reached a hand toward her. "I could do it the hard way..!" I threatened._

_Emma sighed, having been the receiving end of "the hard way" all of her life. "Fine, take your stupid picture!"_

"_Pick up your suitcase and smile!" I held the camera up and looked through the lens, reveling my baby sister; eighteen, impossible and going away to college in less than ten minutes._

_The flash ended and Emma relaxed._

"_Now, we need one with me and you when Delia and Paul get here!" I trilled._

"_But Kayla-!"_

_I hold my hand out, threatening her._

_Emma rolled her eyes but smiled. She looked down at her feet for a second as she scuffed her sneaker toe on the porch before she cleared her throat. "You know…I'm gonna miss you." She stole a glance at me, tears pooling in her eyes._

"_Oh, baby!" I enveloped her in my arms even though she was taller than I was. "I'm gonna miss you too."_

"_I love you, big sis." Emma muttered into my shirt. "Always will."_

" '_Love you too, baby sis." I assured her. "Always have."_

I hadn't opened Emma's door since she left. I didn't want to see all her things there, waiting for her to come back when I didn't know if she would.

But it wasn't the time to reminisce. I had a job to do. Trembling, I picked up the phone and took out the card with the number scribbled there. I dialed and waited for the ringing to start but it doesn't.

Instead the Colonel's voice enveloped the silence in the house: "Stryker here."

I twisted the phone cord around my finger. "It's Kayla. Contact's been made."

"Good." I could hear the smile in his voice and it made me shiver. "I'll check in a few days. Keep him close."

"Emma?" I whispered, barely able to let the name slip past my lips.

"She's doing beautifully, Kayla. There's really no need to worry. Just keep up your side of the bargain and everything will be all right."

I cupped my hand over my mouth so he wouldn't hear the sharp intake of breath as I tried not to cry.

"Can you do this Kayla?"

"I can." I had to. For Emma.

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_and so the plot thickens..... _


	3. The Line

**_So here I am, embarking with my second chapter. Don't expect another one until about a week from now. Finals have come and they are so kicking my butt._**

**_There was a question in one of the reviews as to how convient it was that Kayla Silverfox just happened to be in the town where Logan ended up and I actually considered this. I felt like maybe Kayla was a first choice and that Stryker probably had a few back up plans in case things didn't work out the way he'd planned them. but for hthe purpose of this fic, it sort of needs to work this way...._**

**_Anywhoo... I hope you guys enjoy!_**

**_Dislcaimer: I own nothing but ideas._**

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Chapter 2: The Line

"_**It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." ~ Jane Austen**_

"Paul says there's a new guy with the company!" Delia sang the next morning when I picked her up.

"Oh," I took a left out of her driveway. "Have you met him yet?"

"No! But you did! Last night!" She squealed. Delia was one of those women whose life goal was to match make everyone around her. Maybe it was just her, maybe because she wanted everyone to be as happy as she was with Paul, but she'd already tried to tie me down twice this year alone, once with Parker even. In the last two months, she seemed to have picked up on the fact that I wasn't interested in any of the guys in town but now with Logan here, apparently all the rules had changed. "Why didn't you tell me?!"

I winced at her shrillness. "Dee, do you have to be so loud? It's seven in the morning!"

Delia's dimples appeared in a wide smile. "Well, tell me and then I won't have to guess!" She ran her fingers through her auburn hair and waited, excitement brightening her huge blue eyes. God, I hated it when she did that. Disappointing her was like pushing a very small cute kitten toward a bucket of water and the kitten looks up at you with a plaintive yowl that seems to say: _Why are you doing this to me?_

I shrugged, pointedly not look at her. "There isn't anything to tell. We talked for a few minutes and then I had to go. That's all."

I could hear Delia's frown. "You're awfully short this morning….I think you're hiding something…"

"Delia! What could I possibly be hiding?!"

Delia tapped her fingers on her knee, a knowing smile on her face. "It doesn't matter, I'll find out for myself." She brought out a lunch box. Paul's to be accurate. "Paul forgot it this morning it this morning and we can take it to the pickup site."

"Oh, he 'forgot' did he?" I made air quotes with my free hand.

It was Delia's turn to shrug and indicate the turn I should make and I did. As we cruised along the dirt road, I couldn't help but smile when I thought of how everyone was already pushing us together. Stryker from my end and Paul and Delia from his. That poor man never had a chance.

"Good, we're just in time!" Delia grinned as I pulled into the makeshift parking lot. The guys were only just getting into Robert's truck, loading their chainsaws and axes, Logan among them, a quiet contented smile on his face.

Delia and I parked the car and got out to the hoots and hollers of the other jacks. "Jeez," I rolled my eyes. "You'd think we were that first women they've seen in months."

But Delia was too focused on her mission to pick up on my sarcasm. She approached the truck bed where Paul was sitting. "You forgot this," She handed it to him.

Paul beamed; his smile was just for Delia, as it should be. "Thanks, hon." He glanced up to see me, his hazel eyes focusing on for a moment. "Hey Kayla."

"Hi Paul. Guys." I gave them a nod.

"Here's the guy I was talking about, Dee." Paul pointed behind us. "Hey, Logan. Come 'ere!"

The same man from last night, my target, loped toward us. For some reason I didn't notice how well his shoulders filled out his shirt, how pale he looked when he rolled the sleeves up, which led me down to his hands. His hands-

"Logan," Paul introduced us, snapping me out of my reverie. "This is my girl, Delia," he placed a hand on Delia's petite shoulder. "And her friend Kayla-"

"Silverfox," Logan finished with a smile directed at me. "I wasn't expecting to run into you so soon."

"I was giving Dee a ride." I deferred, glancing at Dee. God, sometimes she was just evil.

"You two know each other?" Paul was bewildered.

"We met last night," Logan informed him without taking his eyes from my face.

"Dee, we better go." I gave her a poke in the shoulder. "We're gonna be late."

Delia reluctantly gave Paul one last kiss and returned to my side as Logan climbed in after we'd moved out of the way. We waved them off, telling them to be safe. They laughed as Robert started the truck and pulled away.

As the truck began its bumpy journey, I could feel Logan's eyes on me. It reminded me of that photo I saw weeks ago, a quiet happiness, a quiet wonder at where he was. And suddenly, I wasn't sure if I could do this. I had to destroy this man, for Emma, for the last bit of family I had left.

It was like he could see the new turmoil on my face because his sharp brown eyes never left mine as the truck disappeared over the hill.

Delia elbowed me. "Well, well, well, Miss Silverfox." She laughed as we got back in the car.

"What?" I put the car in gear.

"You think he's cute!" Again with the squealing.

"He's not a dog, Dee. He's a man."

"I think he thinks the same!" Delia barreled on as if she hadn't heard me. "He never looked away!"

"Seriously!" I growled. "Let it go!"

Delia was quiet for a minute or two. "There isn't anything wrong with finding a handsome guy, Kay. He doesn't seem like the others."

"Yeah, well…that's the problem isn't it?" I cranked up the radio, Billie Holiday was singing about how she'll be seeing me soon. So, I switched it, and found The Beatles' "Strawberry Fields Forever." "They always seem nice at first."

"Kay…" Delia put her small hand on my shoulder, serious for the first time in a long time. "I know that you don't like to be close to other people…"

I frowned. To make things easier, I let the public story of my dad and Emma's color my past. Everyone in town knew that Emma and I had different fathers, that mine had skipped out on me and that Emma's had died in a car crash. But no one outside Emma and my mother knew about our…abilities, not even our fathers knew. It was easier that way.

"…that it's really hard for you to let them in," Delia was saying. "But, honey…"

Against my better judgment, I stole a glance at her. Her normally huge blue eyes were bigger than usual and I couldn't look away. "There's something different about this one." She whispered. "I can feel it." And then she lost me. "He's got a very old soul, like you."

I couldn't help but laugh at her. "God, Dee, not more of that new age-hippie bullshit?! Please tell me you don't actually believe that!"

Dee snorted. "Just look the guy in the eyes. It's right there, that's all I'm telling you."

I would have never admitted it, even under torture, but what she said gave me goosebumps. Sometimes even Dee was dead on.

"Somehow you two are connected. Maybe you knew each other in a former life?" Dee was saying. "I bet your auras are either the same color or opposites. Maybe blue? Green?"

"Dee…" I groaned. "Please, it's just too early in the morning for this."

"Oh fine! But you'll be thinking about it later."

And it was true. I thought about what she said all day. "He's got an old soul, just like you." "It's there" "Don't like to be close to other people…"

When I was younger, I would use it ruthlessly, and without prejudice. But as I grew older I started to wonder if anyone I was friends with was because they liked me or because I'd ordered them too. I even questioned if my mother and sister loved me the way they would if I hadn't been born like this.

"Oh, sweetheart," Mom cupped my cheeks. "You are my baby and I will love you no matter who you are, what you look like. You are mine and I am yours. Never forget that." I didn't question after that.

Just like everything else, it was a blessing and a curse and I'd learned to live with it. Sure, it had its handy moments, especially when trying to keep our secret a secret. However, that niggling question of whether or not someone loved me for me and not for what I influenced them to think was always there in the back of my head.

Later, as I was driving into town when the school day had ended, I saw a familiar figure walking down the road.

I pulled up next to him, honking the horn to get his attention. "Need a ride?" I asked.

"You sure?" Logan squinted down at me.

"Get in!" I leaned over and pushed the door open for him.

He slid in next to me and shut the door. "You know you really shouldn't pick up hitchhikers." Logan said as I drove up a big hill.

"You're not a hitchhiker, you weren't asking for the ride, I volunteered it. So really, it's more carpooling than anything. " I shrugged. "Besides, I know who you are."

A cloud passed over his face as he looked down at his hands. "You know my name. That's all." When he looked at me a moment later, his eyes were a well spring of self-loathing mired in shame and regret. It was so deep, he was drowning in it. Hand it to Stryker to give me a man to break who was already broken.

I tried to keep it light. "I know more than that. I'm a psychic on the side."

He went white for a moment. His eyes were wary as they darted back and forth, looking for an exit but all the while trying to play if off as a joke. "Really?"

I laughed. "Yes, I am." I squinted at him before looking back at the road. "I have foreseen that you will live a very long life, surrounded by many many children and lots of family…" I waved my hand the way a carnival gypsy might. This time, Logan cracked a genuine smile so I kept going. "I have foreseen you shaping the world with your own two hands and will find a treasure more valuable than gold."

"And what's that?" he asked after he was done laughing.

I looked over at him. "Love, of course. What else is there?"

He paused and considered this for a minute. "I really wouldn't know."

"'Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength; loving someone deeply gives you courage.'" I replied quietly, suddenly thinking of Emma. "It's Lao-Tzu. Chinese philosopher."

"Is it true?" He wondered. "What he says?"

I nodded. "Of course it's true."

"You sound like you speak from experience."

"My sister and I…." I swallowed as I reach over to pull my favorite picture out of the glove compartment and hand it to him.

Emma and I had our arms around each other as we were standing in the doorway. Her suitcases and boxes were everywhere but our smiles were real and true and our eyes, almost the same shade of blue. "We're really close." I admitted. "Our mom died a few years ago and we've only got each other now."

He kept looking at the picture, our frozen smiles of hope. It was almost as if he were looking for something there, something beyond the picture.

"Any siblings?" I poked.

For a moment, I didn't think he would answer, he was so quiet. But he surprised me when he leaned back against the seat. "I've got an older brother but we…" he glanced at me, his eyes, as usual, revealing more than he could have ever say. "We aren't speaking. We don't see eye-to-eye anymore."

"I see." I took the next left into town. "Was it over a girl?"

That at least pulled him back from the edge with a smile. "No. It wasn't a girl."

"Well, then, that makes for a much less interesting story," I laughed. "If you're going to stop talking to your brother, at least make it over something good."

He outright laughed at that. "So if I were to lie to you and tell you that it was over some beautiful girl, it would make it worthwhile?"

I looked over at him. "I'd know if you lied."

"Sure you would," he grinned, that half smile coming back.

"I'm psychic, remember?" I smiled.

"I'll remember it from now on." He promised, looking around. "You can drop me off here." He indicated a quiet four way stop.

I pulled over and turned off the engine.

"Are you going to impart some other kind of wisdom on me before I go?" He asked as he moved to get out of the car.

I nodded. "Yeah. I hope you have flannel sheets, because it's going to snow tonight."

Logan pointed up at the sky, puzzled as it was a picture perfect Indian summer's day. "You sure about that?"

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. "Yep. Tonight."

He leaned over. "How about a friendly wager then?"

"The terms?" I asked him.

"If it does snow tonight," he tapped his chin thoughtfully for a moment. "Then-"

"You owe me a drink." I chimed in.

"Fair enough, and if it doesn't snow, then…" He got out of the car and closed the door behind him. "I'll just have to think of something."

"Fine." I held out my hand. "Deal."

He shook my offered hand. "Deal." He replied.

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**_hmmm...intersting......R&R please!!_**

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	4. The Sinker

_**So here we have the third chapter and I'm honestly getting really really excited about this story!!! And I took a few liberties with the story line that you'll be able to see for yourself. Let me know what you think!!!**_

**_and i'm sorry about the slow update, i had finals, then i had to move out, then people's graduations that are still going on this week. and I'm starting an internship next week and it'll run through July, so just don't expect chapters everyweek. I try to do that, but it may or may not work out that way._**

**_Anyway, i'd like to give a shout out to all my readers and reviewers! You all are awsome for all your feedback and I look forward to more!_**

**_Disclaimer: I own nothing at all!_**

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Chapter 3: The Sinker

"_**Time is swift, it races by; Opportunities are born and die... Still you wait and will not try - A bird with wings who dares not rise and fly." ~ A.A Milne**_

I couldn't find Emma! I crashed through the underbrush, dodging snapping branches, taking paths that only the deer took, leaping, nearly flying as I tried to find my baby sister. All the while, I could hear Mom's voice in my head: "Look after Em, Kay….she's your sister…keep an eye on Emma….Emma! Kayla!"

I tripped a few times but kept running. Can't stop, I told myself. Have to find Em. Have to keep promise. Have to….Have to….

In the distance I could see her bright blonde hair gleaming like a flashlight's glow through the murky darkness of the woods behind our house. In the daylight it would have been familiar and I would have known where I was but in the dark…it was impossible.

Suddenly there was a loud snap and Emma was no longer in front of me. Instead a butter-golden doe was running on four perfect spindly legs before me. She was always just out of my finger's reach. "Emma!" I finally screamed to my alarm going off.

I sat up, running a hand through my now tangled hair and looked down at my tangled flannel sheets. Everything is okay, I told myself, my rapidly pulsing heart. I picked up the Native American book of legends I got from the library. It seemed completely harmless yesterday but obviously it was worming its way into my subconscious.

"God…" I tossed it away, hopefully under the bed or furnace or something. Breathing out deeply, I leaned down and buried my face between my hands.

These were the moments I would have given anything for Mom, to be held in her arms and told that everything was going to be all right. For the billionth time since she left, I could see her sitting beside me.

She had Em's honey gold hair that women paid hundreds of dollars for, my oval face and the subtle freckles dusting the bridge of her nose and cheeks. She always wore those crazy gypsy skirts that had a thousand colors in it. And tons of jewelry; rings, bracelets, necklaces. She was a vision of loveliness, even at the end.

And I know what she would say if she were here. She would run her fingers through my hair and whisper; "Follow your heart, baby. It's the only thing that matters in the end. And look after your sister. She's all you have now."

I wished I could. I wished I could protect her the way I used to. But I couldn't, which was where Stryker stepped in. He told me that someone was going to try to take Em away, kill her, experiment on her, I don't know what, but he offered me the deal.

"_I promise that no harm will come to her while she's away from you." Stryker held out his hand to me. "Not a single hair on her head will be touched by anyone. You have my promise."_

"_What's the catch?" I wondered, taking a step back. _

_Stryker smirked and nodded. "You're a smart girl, Kayla. Very smart."_

"_Obviously, you're not going to offer this for free."I tiptoed around him. "An American military officer is offering to help two Canadian mutant sisters for nothing? I don't think so."_

_Stryker shook his head and smirked again. "No, there is something that you can do for me though."_

"_What is that exactly?"_

"_Your mutation allows you to control people, doesn't it?" He wondered casually, as if he were wondering about the weather._

"_Not exactly. I can influence people, not control."I really didn't want to know how he knew that. _

"_Well, I have a job for you." _

I realized then, that it was oddly quiet. There were no animal noises. So, as I brushed my teeth, I pulled back the curtain to find that a foot and a half of snow had fallen overnight. For the most part it had stopped, but a few huge fluffy flakes were making their way down.

I grabbed the phone and dialed Em's number, just needing to hear her voice to calm me down. I waited through two rings and then Em answered.

"Hello?"

I practically jumped. "Emma?! Hi, honey, it's me."

"Hi, Kay. Don't you have to be at work soon?"

I checked the clock, which read 6:23 am. "I've got some time. I just wanted to tell you that you're missing the first snow of the season, babe."

"I don't miss it," Em sniffed. "It's a real pain in the ass."

"Emma!" I started to pull on my jeans one handed and almost fell over. "Boy, have you lost the little girl in you! It's so pretty!"

"And cold and wet and it are hard to walk through…" Em was listing off.

"What? Are you going to get a green card and go to America to get away from all the snow?" I wondered. Oh, shit! This meant that I had a drink waiting for me. With Logan. God, I was never going to hear the end of it.

"No, I'm going to get one to get away from you!" She laughed. "Speaking of you, what's this I hear about your new boyfriend?" She knew me too well.

"Who've you been talking to?" I spat.

"Dee." I could hear her smirk over the phone.

"Em, will think about who you're getting your information from? It's Delia. She makes mountains out of mole-hills all the time."

"Well is he your boyfriend or not? What's his name, by the way?"

"Emma…" I growled.

"Wait, wait! Are you being safe?"

I stopped half-way between my bedroom and the kitchen, trailing a sweatshirt behind me. "Emma Renee Frost! I am the one who should be asking you that question!"

"Hey! It needed to be said by someone big sis!"

"I miss you, baby sister," I whispered, remembering the dream and Mom and the deal with Stryker. "I miss you so much."

"I know," she sighed. "I miss you too, Kay. But seriously, you need to turn your excess smothering onto someone else!" She laughed.

"A fine thank you to the woman who helped raise you!" I retorted.

"Kay, go out and have some fun, okay?"

"Yeah, all right. Fine, sis." I promised and then glanced at the clock. "Shit, hon, I have to go to work. I'll see you this weekend okay?"

"You better! Bye!"

We hung up at the same time and I set the phone off to the side and I pressed my forehead to the window, feeling the coolness from the snow whipping across the glass.

* * *

The snow was still drifting when I made it into school waving hello to everybody as I grabbed coffee. And right on schedule, Delia came in, a huge smile across her face. "What are you so happy about?" I asked, taking a huge sip of coffee.

"I'm just happy…" she hummed as she flitted about the main office, gathering up papers and files. And then I saw it. It sparkled on her finger in the weak snowy light.

I grabbed her hand and yanked her toward me. "Oh my God! OH MY GOD! When?!"

Delia giggled. "Last night."

"Do you know what this means?! You're engaged! You're getting married!" I cried, amazed.

"And you're going to be maid of honor!" She squealed. "Emma's going to be a bridesmaid too!"

"Oh my God!" I cried again because I couldn't say anything else to say.

"We're celebrating on Friday. Can you come?"

"As long as I don't stay out too late." I sat down. "I've gotta drive to Calgary on Saturday. I've got a plane to catch to Toronto to visit Emma."

Dee clapped. "Oh yeah, I forgot that it was parent's weekend this weekend…." Her face fell. "Oh, I see. Well, you did pretty much raise her after your mom died."

I shrugged. "And I miss her. A lot. I called her this morning. Told her about the snow."

Delia smiled and patted my shoulder. "I know, babe. Just make sure you get her measurements. I want to get a dress started for her."

The rest of the day passed in a blur, all smiles from Delia and the kids. It was how I measured my days, not in the movements of clock hands, but in smiles, Technicolor construction paper and markers.

"Miss Kayla," Ryan, a rather precautious five year old, was tugging at my sweater. "Miss Kayla!"

"What's wrong, honey?" I knelt down, checking to see if he was all right. "Need your zipper done?" But it was.

"No! Miss Dee wants you to come outside!" Ryan was insistent. "Right now!"

"Is she okay?" I asked as he pulled me out into the snow.

"Yeah!"

As we staggered out into the snow, I could see Delia up ahead talking to Paul and Paul's new best friend, Logan. I shooed Ryan off to go play while we waited for his parents. Waving to two of the other teachers, I came up behind Dee.

"Oh, hey, Kay!" Paul waved.

"Paul. Logan." I smiled at them both. "Dee told me your big news. Congrads."

"So, are you coming with us, Friday?" Paul wondered.

"I can for a little while. I'm going to visit Em for the three day weekend and I have to be in Calgary at seven."

"In the morning?" Paul was shocked.

"Yep." I nodded and then realized that Logan hadn't spoken. "Is Paul dragging you to this, too?"

"Seems to be that way. As it stands," he held out his hand to catch a few meandering flakes. "I owe you a drink."

"Good to know you don't forget a bet."

"I don't like to be in anyone's debt," he corrected with that half-smile that I began to look forward to.

* * *

The week also passed in a blur. I packed and went to work. Coffee was involved quite a bit; there were papers to grade, books to read and friends to be with. Before I knew it, Friday had come and it was time for me to go to Delia and Paul's.

Everyone from town was there. Even two of the bartenders from the local bar. As I walked through the house looking for Paul and Dee, I realized that the entire town must have pretty much shut down for the party to happen.

"You're here!" Dee suddenly shouted. "The maid of honor is here!" She announced to the room, who all cheered.

Laughing, I gave them a little curtsey.

"And now a preview of your speech!" Paul draped his arm over my shoulder.

"Excuse me?" I pulled away and then looked at Dee. "Wait, wait. Dee never said anything about previewing a speech that hasn't even been written yet!"

"Aw Kay!" Paul cried.

"Come on, Paul. She doesn't have a speech." Logan insisted, stepping up next to me. "Besides, I owe her a drink."

Dee grinned from the other side of Paul. "That's right…." Then smiling, mischievously, "Paul? Honey? Let's go get another beer, hmm?" and she steered him away.

"Are you going to thank me this time?" Logan asked with that cheeky smile.

I shrugged. "I'm not really sure. I could have handled it this time just like last time. And I could have handled it this time."

"It sure looked like it. This time and last time." He smiled.

"Well maybe if you let me handle it, you would see." I insisted.

He held out his hands in the universal sign of surrender but his smile was still there. "Fine, fine. The next one is all you."

"Good. ..." I placed my hand on his. "Now about that drink?"

For everyone's benefit that one drink remained only one. As it was nearly ten, I had to get up before six to be at the airport when I needed to be. And so I found myself sitting on Dee's back porch with Logan, the coffee steaming into the night.

Suddenly there was a tapping at the window and Delia's face appeared in the window. She gave a thumbs up and then disappeared.

"She's drunk…" I sighed and ran my fingers through my hair. "And I'm never going to hear the end of it. Ever."

"Hear the end of what?" Logan asked.

I supposed it was the alcohol that made me say this but: "Dee's a matchmaker. She's been doing it since I met her. She wants everyone else to be as happy as she is."

"And this," he gestured to the space between him and me. "This will?"

"She thinks so." I nodded.

He eyed me over the rim of the coffee cup. "And what do you think?"

I heard Emma's voice in my head, telling me that I needed something for me. I could hear Dee telling me that he was different than the others, thinking that maybe…

No. No. This was all fake. All of it. It was just pretend. I shrugged. "Honestly, I don't know-" I was about to explain something else but then we could hear Dee drunkenly screeching as she came out of the house: "LOGAN AND KAYLA SITTING IN A TREE!"

"Oh, I am going to murder her." I set down my mug and crept out into the snow covered yard at the same moment that Delia, Paul and a few others stumbled out too.

I reached down and piled the powdery snow into a ball. I hefted it, checking the weight, making sure it was the correct size and shape for the perfect impact.

"What are you doing?" Logan whispered as he followed my lead.

I smiled at him. "Handling it myself." And then I threw it. The snowball made a nice solid sound, the sound that an over-ripe peach might make if it were thrown at a tree.

Enraged, Delia turned, her eyes shifting from Logan to me. I laughed and pointed at Logan who still had a snowball in hand. He turned, realized I was trying to frame him, and then attempted to smash the snowball down on my head.

I skipped away and ran, all the while being pelted by snow balls. With the allies and enemies constantly shifting, it evolved into an all out war actually. We raced under the moon and across the snow, screaming and shouting enough to wake the dead.

Eventually, though, our troops left us stranded in the middle of the yard, just me and Logan, our cheeks flushed and hair dripping with snow, but it had been completely worth it.

I held out my gloved hand to him. "Truce?"

He took it. "Truce." And then he pulled me close and smashed a snowball into my hair. He laughed out loud as I scowled up at him.

"Not funny!" I started to walk away but he caught me by the wrist and pulled me back.

"It was a little funny. Admit it," he smiled that half smile. "Just a little."

I rolled my eyes. "Fine, it was a little funny."

He reached over and plucked a fairly big piece of ice out of my hair and I couldn't do anything but smile.

* * *

**_uh-oh! I think Kayla got a little crush!!!!!!!_**

**_so what did you guys think???_**


	5. The Bargain

**_so guys, here i have the next chapter!!_**

**_So, we need to clear up a few things, i have a few confused reviewers and I thought i was being clear but its all good._**

**_-something that bothered me about the movie was that when Kayla and Logan let all the mutants who were at Three Mile Island go free, Emma came out of her cage thing and she looked like she had been there overnight and i was all "Huh...that's a very nice white shirt for someone in a prison" so, in my fic, i've decided that Stryker had told Kalya that someone (not him) was planning on abducting Emma and to keep her safe, Kayla had to do something for Stryker, thus the whole deal. Kayla can still talk to Emma, Emma has no clue that any of this has gone down, btw. _**

**_Disclaimer: I own nothing but the ideas._**

* * *

Chapter 4: The Bargain

"_We all begin with good intent_ _When love was raw and young_ _We believed that we can change ourselves_ _The past can be undone."~ Sarah Mclachlan_

".. and then I went home," I told Em, while taking a sip of my coffee. I'd been keeping her at bay with the promise of the story that Dee had been threatening to tell. Em had been bugging me since I got off the plane the day before. After I bargained for a tour of campus and a walk to our old neighborhood, Em finally reached the end of her rope and threatened to drag me blindfolded into the city and would leave me there without a map unless I told.

"That's it?!" Em exclaimed, slamming her hands down on the table. We stopped at Em's favorite coffee shop when I declared that I desperately needed coffee.

"What more do you want?" I leaned back and basked in the waning fall Toronto sun. I could have said I missed Toronto, after living there for most of my life and nearly half of Emma's, but it was suffocating I realized. All the buildings were too tall and too many. They shut out so much of the sun that I was constantly looking for it. I missed my mountains and the cool clear wind that would brush my hair off my shoulder. It made me think of Mom a little, almost as if she were reaching down and reminding me that she was never very far from me.

Emma rolled her eyes and ran her hands through her hair. It'd grown a few inches since the last time I'd seen her. "Well, did you kiss him?" Her face was still round, her cheekbones still prominent. Her eyes were mirrors, as always, to mine despite our differences. This time, however, mine were holding back and hers were searching.

I really did laugh a little at her. "No, Emma, I did not."

"Why not?!" Emma stretched out her hands and laid her head down briefly on the table before sitting up again. "I mean the opportunity was there! The chance was there! He was obviously very willing-"

"You weren't even there!" I interjected with a pointed finger.

"From what you've told me, and from what Dee's told me, he's interested, and I'm sure he was about to make his move."

I shook my head. "Since when do you-"

"Carry all the knowledge?" Em sniffed. "I got it from Mom, you didn't get the gene. Sorry. Now, back to you and your boy-toy."

"Please don't call him that." I pleaded. "He has a name."

"Fine," Emma grinned a predator's grin. "Now, back to you and _Logan_. First thing I have to ask is: is he cute?"

"He's…attractive." I admitted for the first time out loud. "Nice bone structure. Nice smile." I smiled too, thinking of his and how it lit up his whole face, changed his whole demeanor.

"Kayla Rose Silverfox!" Emma's grin was a Siberian tiger's gaze as it dangled a little mouse from its paw. "I do believe that is the most scandalous thing you've ever said! 'Nice bone structure'!?" Emma was incredulous. "Come on, I am your sister, you can tell me!"

"Fine, fine." I sighed, sipping away the last of my coffee. "But not a word of this to Dee, understand?"

Emma held up her hand. "I swear."

I exhaled a deep breath and looked anywhere but at Emma's face. "He's…"

Under the table, Emma poked me with her foot. "Come on! Out with it!"

"He's not the usual guy I go for, to be honest." I shrugged. "He's not blonde or thin or at all like I normally like." Still her gaze was unconvinced like a cougar searching for something to stalk. "For God's sake, he has a beard! You know how much I hate beards!"

Emma's eyes widened. "Wow…that is weird."

"He's a lumberjack, with Paul-"

"He's a lumberjack? Really?"

"Don't judge!" I snapped. "He's got really nice shoulders and arms-"

"Geez, Kay, you're such a nun!"

"His ass isn't bad either," I threw in without thinking.

Emma let out a victorious laugh. "HA! I knew it!" She glanced around and realized that we'd caught everyone else's attention on the patio of the coffee shop. Emma and I smiled and then turned our chairs slightly away from the rest of the patio. "What's he like, other than physically?"

Instantly, I remembered the first night I met him and how he…well saved me from Parker, how he saved me from Dee. His laugh when I joked that I was psychic and how it changed him. Now how he looked at me, with a gratefulness I couldn't even put into words. "He's nice…sweet..." I grinned because I couldn't help it. "But not in the way you'd expect from someone like him…. And his eyes are so expressive, they always give him away-"

"So are you going to jump him when you get home or should I call him now?" Emma waggled her eyebrows suggestively.

"Shut up, Em!" I took a swipe at her but she dodged me laughing.

"What have you told him?"

I knew this was coming. "The shortened version: you're at school, I'm a teacher, Mom died. Dee's my best friend, practically our adopted sister. Paul's our big brother, pretty much."

"So, no…?" Emma's hand flashed briefly in the sun as her skin turned diamond hard.

I smacked it down on the table, probably giving myself a bruise. "Knock it off! And no, he doesn't know about either of us and it's going to stay that way!"

"He's gonna find out eventually," Emma crossed her arms over her chest.

"No, he won't. Your dad didn't. Nobody else needs to know," I repeated a few of Mom's parting words to me.

"Kayla," Emma's voice was suddenly serious. "I know you better than anyone and I know when you're laying on the bullshit."  
"Excuse me?! That is what Mom told me before she died!"

Emma waved her hand. "No, no. I mean that you're afraid that you're going to get attached to this guy and then he's going to leave."

"Emma, it's not that simple-."

"I think you're avoiding your real feelings," Emma sing-songed. "I think you could really like him, but you're afraid." I didn't say anything at first, just looked down at my coffee cup and ran my finger around the rim. "You're afraid that he won't feel the same way, or that he'll change his mind…" Em went on. "And that he'll leave and you'll be alone…"

"Em…please…"

"No, I have to say this. You deserve the best and if this guy is worth it, then he'll understand if you tell him…." She nudged gently.

"I…I don't want any more heartbreak," I confided to her. "After Mom died…" I shook my head. "I'm tired, Em. I'm tired and I'm only twenty-six."

Em frowned sympathetically. "I know. But I think this guy could be good for you. Make you less tired…" She grinned devilishly. "Or more. I have a good feeling about him. Give him a chance at least."

I grinned back. Our eyes were equal. "Am I really that transparent?"

"Only to me," Emma assured me. "Trust me; I doubt that even Dee realizes it."

I shook my head. "No. It's gotten so bad that even Dee can see it. And calls me on it constantly."

"That is bad."

I checked my watch and stood. "Babe, I've got to go that meeting with the financial aid office, okay? I just want to get some things sorted out before I head back to Canmore."

Emma smiled and stood as well. "All right. I'll head back to my room. I'll meet you later, okay?"

I kissed her cheek and left.

* * *

Stryker was waiting for me at the base of the CN Tower as agreed upon. "Kayla," he held out his hand for a shake. When I took her hand he covered it with his other one. When we'd finished, he offered me his arm and I took it. To the outside view, we looked completely ordinary. "How are you? How is your visit so far? And Emma?" He acted as if we were old friends instead of what we really were: a devil and his demon.

"Fine. Just fine." I replied as I glanced around. There was no menacing figure, no hobo nails to make me squirm. It was just Stryker and me. "Where's Victor, your pet? I didn't think you went anywhere without him."

Stryker chuckled. "Really, Victor isn't so bad when you get to know him. I'm sure Logan's told you all about him."

"He hasn't actually." I kept my replies short and to the point as we strolled. "We haven't talked much about the past."

"I see." He chuckled again. "And how is he adjusting?"

"Fine. Everything is going according to plan."

"You don't sound excited."

I stopped and pulled away. I glared at him. "Do you really expect me to be?!"

"You're keeping your sister safe, keeping your promise to your mother-." Stryker reasoned.

"But…I'm going to-"

"You're going to keep him in one place for a while. Keep the rest of the world safe. It all depends on you, Kayla."

I nodded in understanding. "Then I need something from you."

"Name it."

"I can't call you every week and give you updates." I admitted. "I can't be your spy and be with him."

"How will I know that you're keeping your end of the bargain?" Stryker asked.

"I guess you'll just have to trust me."

"I don't know if that's possible."

"Well, then, you're out a spy, aren't you?" I countered, trying to hold my ground.

"Kayla," he started to reason like an indulgent uncle. "This is ridiculous, all you have to do is make one short phone call-"

"And feel like a traitor." I injected. "I know you keep close tabs on Emma. So, if I get to talk to her every week, consider the deal still on." I held out my hand to seal the deal.

Stryker glanced first at my hand and then at my face. It sent a shiver down my spine as he smiled. "Fine." He shook my hand again.

* * *

For the first time in weeks, I felt free. I didn't have to worry about calling Stryker, or looking over my shoulder to look for Victor.

"You look happy to be leaving me." Em commented sourly on the cab ride to the airport Sunday morning.

I shrugged. "I just miss home. I never really realize it until I've been away for a while."

Emma grinned and poked me hard in the shoulder. "I think you miss _him_!" She sat up straighter in her seat, smugness emanating from her every pore. You'd think she'd cured cancer by the look on her face.

"No, I miss sleeping in my bed and waking up to my view every morning. I miss the mountains. I'm not a city girl. Not like you, Miss Memorized-The-Bus-Route." Really, she fit in Toronto. It was her place. Like her dad.

Emma just rolled her eyes. "Yeah, whatever. I know you just need an excuse to be around Logan again."

I laughed. I suddenly missed her for more stupid reasons than I could count. I missed dancing with her through the kitchen and arguing about what we were going to have for dinner. I missed driving her to school and sitting out on the patio watching the sun go down with her. I looped my arm around Em's slim shoulder and pulled her close. "I love you, kid. You're always first. Always."

"I should hope so." Emma grinned. "I am your sister after all." Emma twisted a loose piece of hair from my face and tucked it behind my ear, reminding me so much of Mom it almost made me cry. "I love you too, by the way."

"Yeah, I got that." I rested my head on her shoulder.

"Always will." She began our little tradition that started...actually I couldn't even remember where it came from. Sometimes it seemed like we'd always said it.

"Always have." I replied, kissing her temple.

I hated goodbyes. And as the record stood, I wasn't very good at them. The only person I knew who was as bad was Emma. We were quite the pair, Emma and I, with the tears streaming down our cheeks and promises of calls and letters. As I walked onto the plane, I poked my head out my window to see her waving from the gate.

* * *

I was driving home from Calgary when it happened.

Someone on the plane asked where I was headed and when I told them Canmore, they told that it had snowed another foot while I was gone. But the road wasn't too bad, nothing I couldn't handle.

It was actually clear out that night; clear enough to see all the stars as I drove up into the mountains. Each mile drew me in and I saw landmarks that filled me with a sense of home.

Just as I was passing out of town, I stopped at the four way stop and then proceeded to turn onto the road that would take me home. As I made the turn, I looked to the left and then caught a sudden movement out of the corner of my eye.

A dark shape like a huge dog or bear or something jumped into the middle of the road, it seemed to rear up on its hind legs as my headlights moved closer and closer.

And so, stupidly, I slammed on the brake and swerved to the left, missing the shape by a foot or so.

Everything spun. I saw the night sky twist and the huge oak tree that sat on the left side of the road grow bigger and bigger. The black night and the white snow blurred together as the car spun and spun. Time both slowed and sped up while I spun across what looked like the sky.

From some distance away I heard the crash of metal, the magical tinkling of glass. There was the smash I had been waiting for and then everything went dark.

* * *

**_I love cliffies!! now press that purple button and make me the happiest poor college kid in the world!!!_**


	6. The Accident

**_So here's the next chapter. sorry i couldn't put it up earlier, my 'rents computer decided not to work for a while but we figured out the problem. Now i bring you the end of the cliffie, i hope you all enjoy! _**

**_I'm really excited that most people like the twists I've put in, hopefully you'll stick around for all the twists ;)_**

**_anyway, enjoy guys!_**

**_Disclaimer: I own nothing at all_**

* * *

Chapter 5: The Accident

"_Promise me you'll always remember: You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. Christopher Robin to Pooh__" ~ A.A Milne_

Bright blue and red lights burned into my closed eyelids. I breathed in a deep sigh trying to wake up but there was a sudden ache down my back that radiated down through my left leg. Where the hell-this wasn't right….I took another deep breath, trying to grip on the growing panic. Outside, I heard muffled shouts and shadowed figures that ran back and forth in front of my car-Wait, the car?!

The last thing I remembered was the black…thing in the road and the snow and the spinning sky. I reached up and pressed a hand to my aching temple and then pulled it away in horror. In the glaring red and blue lights, my hand dripped hot slick blood.

My hands shook and I suddenly couldn't breathe. But the shaking hurt even more than my head. I couldn't stop shaking and it reverberated all the way down my back. The cold and the pain swirled in my head and black spots filled my vision as the dashboard shrank down to a pin point for a moment.

I breathed deep again, ignoring the pain, and opened my eyes. Everything ached especially in the cold. I flexed my fingers on my right hand with success but when I tried with my left, I nearly screamed with the pain that ripped from the tips of my fingers to my shoulders.

Despite the discomfort, the pain helped wake me up some and I tried to sit up. But that was a huge mistake; all I was aware of was the fact that my left leg bones squealed against each other with audible cracks and snarls.

To my right, the door creaked open, bringing in a gust of cold air. I shivered and then almost screamed because it caused it caused the bones to grind against each other again. The light was bright, maybe a pair of headlights, in my eyes and a shadowy shape moved toward me.

I flinched away and pressed my face against the window away from that dark shape. I tried to breathe deeply and evenly, focusing only on the cold glass on my forehead and where it touched my face. It felt good on my temple, actually.

Suddenly a shadow crossed in front of the window. "Kayla? Kayla, can you hear me?" I knew that voice. From somewhere.

I opened my eyes and frowned. I knew that voice. Sitting up just enough to be able to discern facial features. He leaned forward and tapped the glass as if trying to wake me up. "Hey! Kayla, can you hear me?"

I nodded, letting my eyelids close. God, I was so tired all of a sudden.

"No, Kayla! Stay awake! Kayla! Open your eyes…" But I couldn't hear anymore. I fell into the darkness again.

* * *

Suddenly, the light was so bright for a moment that there wasn't anything else. Then, the smell of antiseptic and mothballs hit me. Then, I could feel the papery sheet all over me. And then there was the aching pain in my leg and lower back. I shifted a little to maybe help re-adjust my spine. It didn't help at all, instead it intensified the throbbing that radiated down to my legs.

I must have made some kind of noise because all of a sudden there was movement from the other side of the room. A human shaped stood by the bed, calling my name, rubbing my hand.

"Hey, Kayla, hey. Wake up." It was the same voice from before. I would have whispered the name and told them that I was all right but I couldn't find the name in my head. Instead of saying anything, I laced my fingers through the ones that touched my hand.

They were like leather. Not harsh or cold but tough, well-worn leather that had been left out in the sun for a while. It was nice, it took the chill off at least but it wasn't until that moment I realized how cold I really was.

"Kayla? Can you hear me?"

I wished I could have nodded at least but…I was so tired.

"Squeeze my hand if you can hear me."

Gathering up what little strength I had, I squeezed enough and then I couldn't stay awake.

* * *

The light was back, burning into my eyes. I reached up and pushed it away or at least tried to.

"Kayla! Kayla! Stop, honey, stop!" Dee was there. "Hey, open your eyes. I'm here, I want to see your eyes." She ran her hand over my hair. "You have such pretty eyes, Kayla."

Paul's voice chimed in. "Kay? Come on, babe, open your eyes."

I reached out with my good hand and felt that same warm hand waiting for me. "Kayla…" Oh, God, I knew that voice now. Well, there was no hiding now.

I opened my eyes and the room spun with bright lights and white walls. For a good minute or so, my friends were simply dark blurs. I blinked a few times and finally the room came into focus. Delia and Paul were on my left, smiling uncertainly at me. To my right, as I knew he would be, was Logan, who was holding my hand.

"Kayla? Honey? Are you okay?" Delia leaned down a little closer.

"What the hell is going on?" I rasped when I looked down at the white cast plastered over my leg and my arm. And then I felt, rather than saw, the oxygen tube under my nose. Instantly, I started to reach up and pull it away.

"Oh no, no, no!" Dee pulled my hand away. "You were in a car accident, sweetheart." Delia told me with a small frown. "A bad one. You broke your left hand and leg. You're in the hospital."

I closed my eyes briefly, breathing in the hospital smell that I hated so much and tried to block out all the memories that it brought. "How long have I been here?" I whispered.

"About three days." Logan replied quietly. "Right, Paul? They pulled her out of there Sunday?"

Sunday? Three days? That meant it was. Tuesday? Wednesday? "Wait," I replied. "You were there?" I pointed with my casted hand.

"You don't remember?" Paul wondered.

"Paul, she has a concussion." Delia chastised him.

"A concussion?" I retorted. "How bad?"

Delia smiled. "You're got a nice bump on your forehead. It goes well with your black eye."

"God…"

"What happened?" Logan wanted to know. "Did you fall asleep?"

"No…" I shook my head once and then closed my eyes. It was dark and the sky and the… "There was something in the road…like an animal…a bear maybe. Anyway, I swerved-." I made the hand motion with my casted left hand. "Hit-hit the tree, I guess…." I sighed and leaned back, as I tried to re-adjust my aching leg.

"Are you hurting, Hon?" Dee asked, pressing her hand against my cheek.

"No," I insisted. "Just a little sore."

"Paul," Delia shook her head at my stubbornness. "Come on, let's go get a nurse and some coffee-"

"For me too, please!" I tried.

"Nope. No coffee for the patient." She waggled her finger. "I'm going to get a nurse to give you more painkillers so you can sleep. Logan," Dee was in full command-mode, and with his military background, Logan had immediately looked up.

"Yes Ma'am?"

"Watch her. No moving, no coffee." She ordered.

"Of course, Ma'am. Very good, Ma'am." He gave her a salute as she and Paul left.

"You're such a suck up!" I snarled as soon as they were clear of the room. "Come on, you can go sneak me some coffee while they're away!"

Logan laughed. "You are something else, you know that? I mean you've been totally out of it for the past three days and the only thing you want is coffee."

Something about that reminded me of Em. "Oh geez, I need to call Emma. Tell her everything." I glanced around. "Where's the phone-?"

Logan pressed my hand down to keep me from moving. "Delia already called her."

"When?"

He thought for a second. "Yesterday. She told Emma that you would call her when you were sober enough to talk."

"I'm sober now." I insisted. "Where is the phone?"

"Kayla," he began. "For one, it's ten at night and she's probably asleep. And two, you have to sleep."

"I've been sleeping for the past three days, I'm good." I replied as I tried to sit up. As I should have known he would, Logan pushed me back down and fixed me with a glare.

"Kayla…"

I rolled my eyes at him and laid back down. "Fine, fine, you win." I sat back with a sigh. "So, how is it that I don't remember the last three days? What the hell did they give me?" I wondered.

Logan smiled that smile I hadn't realized I'd been missing. "Mostly morphine. Especially when they were re-setting your leg."

I winced. "Did I scream?"

"A little," he admitted with a frown.

"So how bad do I look? I mean Dee said I had a black eye."

He tilted his head sideways, thinking. "Sort of like a one eyed raccoon."

I laughed a little. "Really? A one eyed raccoon? Is it really that bad?"

Logan shrugged. "A little banged up but still…

I shook our joined hands, waiting for the rest of his sentence. "But still…what?"

"Beautiful," he glanced up at me. The fear I saw there almost made my heart stop. I wasn't entirely sure what he was afraid of; it was sort of like he was stepping out onto a rocky cliff with no lifeline to speak of.

I wished that there was something that I could say, but there were no words that I could find that would be fitting. He trusted me with this small truth and I could destroy him so easily. Pushing back all thoughts of Stryker or Victor, I smiled and squeezed his hand. "Thank you."

Just then a nurse came in. And I pulled my hand away as Logan leaned backward almost on instinct. The nurse took down a few notes on her clipboard and then pulled out a syringe and injected it into the IV bag nearest to my bed. Within a few seconds, I could feel the medicine swirling in my veins. I tilted my head back towards Logan, whose normally solid form blurred a little. I smiled, telling him everything was all right. My tongue was heavy and slick against my teeth as I mumbled out: "Donna go…"

"What?" he came a little closer.

I swallowed hard and focused on pronouncing the words. "Don't …go…please…Don…don't wanna be alone…" My eyelids slid closed of their own volition. Even though the heavy darkness, I felt his hand laced with mine, a link while I floated in a drug-laced stupor. He never left.

* * *

"Dee, please! I'm dying for some real food!" I complained a few days later. "Paul, come on! Sneak me in a burger or something…I'm begging you!"

"Nope." Dee shook her head. "I promised Emma that I would take care of you."

"But this food is inedible! It's torture!"

"The jell-o's not so bad," Paul said through a mouthful.

"Yes, thank you, Paul. And now you've eaten the only thing that's edible."

Paul shrugged and then exited.

"Wait! Paul! Come back here! Please?!" I reached out with my good hand but only grabbed thin air. "You've always been my favorite!"

Delia looked at her watch. "Are you sure you're okay with us going?" She asked me again. "I feel bad for leaving you again, but we sort of planned this whole thing with Paul's parents and mine now that it's official."

"Go, go! Leave me to my tortuous hospital room. I'll be fine." I patted her hand.

"Are you sure? I know how much you hate hospitals."  
"I told you I'll be fine. Logan said he'd come sit with me…" I twisted my fingers in my sheets to avoid looking at her.

"When did he say that?" Delia wondered innocently.

I shrugged. "The other day."

"Why Kayla Rose Silverfox! You tramp!" She howled.

"Delia!" I smacked her hand. "Quiet! Someone will hear you!"

"Who? Logan!" She skipped out the door.

I rolled my eyes and leaned back down against the pillows. Over the last few days, I realized that there was some kind of chrome metal finish on the cabinets over my bed and I tried to fix the rebellious strands that decided to escape my ponytail.

Suddenly I heard Delia giggle loudly and I knew who was here. Two seconds later, Logan strolled through the door. "Hey," he waved and then produced a brown paper bag from underneath his jacket. "I brought the goods."

"You are the perfect man!" I insisted as I grabbed at the bag he handed to me.

Inside, there was a piece of rhubarb pie, a packet of extra greasy fries and a burger dripping with barbeque sauce with a few extra pickles just the way I liked it. "Burger, fries and pie….I owe you big time."

"You better eat that quick. Dee said she'd be back as soon as possible." He'd even picked up on my nickname for Delia.

I opened up the fry packet. "Help me?"

"I can't believe you eat this stuff…" and yet he took a few.

"Because it's better than that crap." I pointed at the food tray where a grey lump, a brown lump and a green lump all sat on the plate. "I don't even know what that is. This…" I took a huge bite of the burger. "This is amazing!"

"Jesus, look at you." He sat back with a huge smile. "I never would have pegged you as such a carnivore."

"I need real food. This, right here," I pointed to the crumpled bag in my lap. "This is what's keeping me alive. You are doing me a life-saving service here, friend."

"Is that my nickname?" he wondered.

"Huh?" I stuffed a few fries in.

"Everybody's got a nickname; Dee. Em. You."

I dropped a few fries onto the bed. "Oh no, she didn't…."

He nodded smugly. "Oh yes she did."

"When did you talk to Em?" I whispered with wide eyes.

Logan shrugged, being the picture of nonchalance. "The other day…Makalya Rose…" He grinned wolfishly at me.

I groaned and slapped my good hand over my eyes. "That child had better find a new place to sleep when she comes home for Christmas break because she's not going to be sleeping in my house!"

* * *

**_Now go push that GREEN BUTTON give me something to work for!!!!!_**


	7. The Recovery

**_So, I've been struggling a lot with this chapter. Something just didn't seem right in the last one and I felt like I got off topic in the last one, so I've worked this chapter to death and I want to know honestly what you guys think. _**

**_I own nothing at all, and if you couldn't tell, I love The Beatles and so does Kayla!_**

* * *

Chapter 6: The Recovery 

"_There's nothing you can make that can't be made.  
No one you can save that can't be saved.  
Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you in time  
It's easy…"~ Beatles "All you need is love"_

"I haven't seen Logan in the past few days," Dee announced one Saturday morning in November as we were addressing wedding invitations. I was finally given the okay to go to Dee's house (living alone with a still plastered broken arm and leg was not really possible) and so I was Dee's right hand when it came to wedding plans. I memorized every single florist's number from here to Calgary, and had addressed nearly half of the invitations. Dee and I were almost finished with those when she brought it up.

I shrugged and kept on addressing. "He has his own life. I've got mine."

"But he brought you food behind my back practically the whole time you were in the hospital. To me, that seems kind of like he liked you… And now it's like he's vanished into thin air."

Again, I shrugged. "I don't have any claim on him, Dee. He can do what he wants." What else did she want? I had nothing else to give to her.

"You liked him. I could see it. And now you're just going to let him go?" Dee was incredulous.

"I have other things I have to worry about. I don't have time to deal with this too," I placed the last of the envelopes on the finished pile.

Dee threw down her pen in annoyance. "Well, it's not right! I thought he was different, and you deserve the best after all the shit you've had to deal with! And-!"

"Delia, please. Don't okay?" I grabbed her hand, almost pleading. "Just don't."

"Kayla-"

"Come on let's talk about something fun, like the dresses." I cut her off. "You said you got mine and Emma's in and I want to see them… Please?"

Dee sighed. "You're playing the-I-have-a-broken-leg-and-broken-arm-and-I-get-anything-I-want-card aren't you?"

"Maybe," I replied tapping my fingers together in thought. "Is it working?"

She rolled her eyes and got up. She gathered up the envelopes in her arms as she stood. "Yes, unfortunately." Delia shook her head in disgust, leaving me alone in the guest room.

Outside, the snow was falling softly and piling up on our cars. Normally, I would have been overjoyed to simply sit and read and watch the snow fall. But today, especially after everything Dee had said, I missed him.

It was nice to know he was there, to know nothing that bad could have happened. It was why the hospital was tolerable, because he never let me think about how much I hated it or remember the memories that made my skin crawl.

_The office was too cool; it made my skin bubble with goosebumps. Mom's hand was warm in mine as the minutes ticked by and I anchored myself to it. I closed my eyes and tried to memorize the soft lines of her hands, the cool rings and the knowledge that she loved me no matter what._

_Mom leaned over and kissed my temple and then smiled against my hair. I looked up at her, her eyes tired but there the same sweet smile on her lips. "It'll be okay honey. No matter what the doctor says."_

"_Mom," I sighed and leaned my chin on her frail shoulder. "What…what if-"_

_Mom squeezed my hand. "Kayla, whatever will be, will be. We can't change it."_

"_But-" She was already giving up. She was already to leave us, when we needed her. Emma was twelve, I was twenty and I wasn't able to let her go just yet, especially if she was just going to give up. "Mom!"_

_She cupped my face between her hands. "Do me a favor, love?"_

_I swallowed hard, keeping the tears back. Even though she was giving up, I still couldn't help myself. "Anything." I promised. "Anything you want."_

"_Take care of Emma. Keep her safe. She's so impetuous and she's going to need you." Mom smoothed a few loose hairs away from my face, like she always did. "Please?"_

"_Of course, Mom." I buried my face into her shoulder, breathing in her smell. From before I could remember my mother had always smelled like laundry just out of the dryer and a fresh cut bouquet of irises. _

_I nodded as the door opened and Dr. Burns walked in. "Hello ladies," he greeted us as he fished out the x-ray and hung it up. "How are you today?"_

"_It's been a good day," Mom smiled clearly._

_Dr. Burns took it off his glasses and set them on the table. "Good…good. That's very good to hear Mrs. Frost."_

"_But?" I ventured as I could hear it coming. _

"_But I'm afraid this has advanced much faster than we could have imagined," He sighed. "That there isn't anything we can do but make you comfortable."_

_I gripped Mom's hand and tried not to cry. Mom looked over at me, all of her serenity, her love and her peace washed over me._

"What do you think?" Dee held up a dark lavender umpire waist gown.

"I like it." I nodded, wiping away a few dewing tears. "It's pretty."

"Honey, what's wrong?" Delia sat next to me.

I shook my head and kept wiping at my face. "I was just thinking about my Mom and how much she would love to be here right now. That's all."

Dee grinned. "I miss her too, you know?"

"Yeah, I know." I waved my hand. "Enough about me, I'm done wallowing. Tell me about your plans."

"I was thinking that maybe you could wear white lilies in your hair. Maybe Morning Glories or some white flower?"

"Could you go bluebells maybe?" I suggested. "Or would the color clash too much?"

"Yeah, I think I want to stick with white."

I nodded again. "It's pretty. Emma will love it."

* * *

Two weeks later, I was back driving my beast of a car around in leg and arm brace. The doctor was amazed at how quickly the bone was healing and how little of a scar I was going to have on my forehead.

But today was one of the first days I was allowed to go out by myself and I loved every minute of it. As a celebration for moving back into my house, I decided to pick up some take at the only Chinese place in town. The Wong's had lived in Canmore longer than almost anyone else; they left Vancouver during the forties and settled here because they liked the view.

"Okay," Mrs. Wong set the take out bag on the counter. "I have order of beef and broccoli, one of chicken dumplings, four egg roll, and order of fried rice."

I handed over money to cover it and a tip. "Thanks. Mrs. Wong."

"This all for you?" She wondered in her broken English. Actually, Mrs. Wong's English was much more understandable than Mr. Wong's.

"Well, yes, but Emma will be home tomorrow and she'll help me finish off the leftovers." I explained.

"You tell her to call when she home. Okay?"

"I will. Tell Mr. Wong 'Merry Christmas' for me!" I called as I left. However the words were barely out of my mouth I ran smack dab into who else but Logan.

I was so surprised; I took a step back with my bad leg and onto a sheet of ice. He grabbed me around the waist and steadied me from falling backward.

"Thanks," I murmured as I pushed myself away from him. "So…I haven't seen you in a while…how are you?"

He nodded. "You look better," he observed as he looked me up and down, noting my walking cast and brace.

"I am. I'm a fast healer," I retorted as the dusk was beginning to set in. Around us, the mountains grew purple and dark blue with shadows and were covered with newly fallen snow. With the sun quickly vanishing from the sky, the temperature was dropping too.

"Look, I know that you're mad," Logan started, hands up in surrender.

I shrugged, looking down at my feet. "You made no promises to me."

"But you have to understand," he kept talking as if he hadn't heard me. "That the people I get close to end up getting hurt-."

"Wait." I held up a hand. "Wait, we are going to do this in front of a Chinese restaurant?" I pointed up at the Wong's sign.

"I suppose since you attacked me," he retorted. "Yeah, I suppose so."

"Fine…so let me get this straight: you feel guilty for what happened to me?" I grabbed his arm and pulled him around so he had to look at me. "Logan, listen to me." This time I infused the order with a little something extra. "It was a car accident-_accident_! If it was anyone's fault it was mine. I was tired and shouldn't have been driving."

He shook his head. "You said there was something in the road."

"Well, yeah. If I had been more awake. I would have noticed it earlier." I insisted.

Annoyed, Logan closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Kayla-"

"You think someone's out to get me?" I laughed and then stopped when Logan fixed me with a glare. Honestly, it was funny; I had been thinking about the accident lately and it all had seemed a little strange. The weird black shape that simply stood there in the middle of the road even when my headlights were on top of it, it just seemed…wrong

"If you really knew who I was….what I was." Logan snarled at himself. "You'd run as fast as you could…Has anyone ever told you that you are impossibly stubborn by the way?"

I ignored him and kept on explaining. "That's why you were outside that night; you thought someone had come for you? That's why you stayed with me at the hospital? Because you felt guilty?"

"I told you: when I get close to people, they get hurt. And I won't let it happen anymore." He turned and started to walk away.

"So, that's what you're going to do?" I called after him. "Walk away when you get too close?!" He didn't stop. "Out of some whacked sense of honor?"

Still, he didn't stop.

"Coward!" I snarled. "Everyone else thinks you're a tough guy but I know what you really are!" That stopped him and he turned around finally. "You don't scare me." I told him as he came closer. "You can try all you want but you don't scare me." I stared him straight in the eye as he was six inches taller than me and less than a foot away. However, I had to ignore the square jaw and the narrowed eyes which weren't brown like I thought they were; a hazel greenish, sort of fluid, constantly changing and shifting.

"You don't know me," he whispered. "You don't know what I'm capable of."

"I would if you told me," I crossed my arms in front of my chest, swinging the Chinese against my stomach.

"It's not as simple as you think it is." He argued.

I shrugged. "Either way, I'm going to tell you something that not even Dee or Em knows: remember a few weeks ago when I gave you a ride and I predicted your future for you?  
He nodded. "Yeah? What about it?"

"And you laughed for what looked like the first time in months?"

"Yeah?"

"That's the guy I miss." I poked him hard in the chest, trying to nail the point home. "Not the self-sacrificing hero or the guilt racked lackey, but the guy who laughed at my horrible joke, who smiled, who looked at my picture and saw something more." I shook my head at my own stupidity. "I don't even know why I'm saying this, I just had to."

"So what now?" Logan asked. He didn't seem as angry as he had been before.

"I'm go home, get out of the cold and eat this Chinese." I looked up at him and I couldn't stop the words from tumbling out of my stupid mouth. "Listen, I have a lot to eat and I probably won't be able to finish it all, so if you are feeling like you'd be willing to be that guy that I miss, then I have an extra set of chopsticks waiting for you."

* * *

At home, there was one message from Emma and one from Delia. Emma's just reiterated over and over that her flight was coming in at two tomorrow afternoon and Dee called to ask how I was doing by myself.

After I called Dee back, I pulled out my favorite Beatles album and put it on. I opened up the carton of beef and broccoli and unwrapped an egg roll as Paul McCartney's voice echoed in my empty house:

"_I'm happy just to dance with you  
__Before this dance is through  
__I think I'll love you too  
__I'm so happy when you dance with me  
__I don't want or need to hold your hand  
__Well it's only try and understand  
__'Cause there's really nothing I would rather do  
__'Cause I'm happy just to dance with you__…_" I hummed along as I pulled myself up on the kitchen counter.  
Just as I was about to take a big bite of the beef and broccoli, the door bell rang. Sighing, I jumped down and called out: "I'm totally fine, Dee! I am woman," I reached the door and pulled it open. "Hear me roar- You're not Dee…" I whispered as the light from the house reached outside and fell on Logan's face.

"No, I'm not. Sorry." he grinned a little.

"What are you doing here?" I stepped back and let him in.

"If I remember correctly, you said that you had Chinese food and chopsticks waiting, if I was interested." He stepped inside and looked around.

"Yeah, I did." I led him into the kitchen, feeling very strange that a man was in my house, a man had never been in our house. Meanwhile, Paul McCartney sang on:

"_Before this dance is through  
I think I'll love you too  
I'm so happy when you dance with me  
If somebody tries to take my place  
Let's pretend we just can't see his face  
In this world there's nothing I would rather do  
'Cause I'm happy just to dance with you  
Just to dance with you  
It's everything I need…_"  
"What'd you get?" He leaned over the kitchen island counter.

"Beef and broccoli, fried rice, chicken dumplings and my favorite; egg rolls." I held one out to him. He reached out to take it. "Wait! Before you take this egg roll, you have to understand something."

"What is that?"

"By accepting this egg roll or any other food products tonight, you will agree to and keep this unwritten contract. The choice is yours."

Logan paused for a second and then took the egg roll. "Consider the choice made."

"Welcome to the club." I hopped up on the counter and opened up the fried rice carton and held out a pair of chopsticks.

He gestured at the dining room table that we never used as he took them.

"Um, no." I shook my head and scooted over to make room for him. "The rule in this house is that when we eat Chinese, we eat it sitting on the counter with the Beatles." I pointed over to the record player.

He smiled and sat next to me. "Listen. I'm-"

"Don't spoil it," I cut him off. "I know. You're here and accepted the egg roll. It's done."

"How do you know what I'm going to say?" He picked up the chicken dumplings carton.

"I told you, I'm psychic!" I stole a dumpling from him.

"I mean really? How do you know?"

I shrugged. "Your eyes always give you away."

Logan nodded solemnly as he ate another dumpling. "I see. And what else have you divined?"

"Listen," I sighed. "I understand that you have secrets. Things that you're ashamed of or don't think anyone will understand."

Logan stared at me, eyes tight and wary.

"And you don't have to tell me. I'm not prying or poking but if you want to you can tell me." I didn't touch him or try to.

He nodded silently.

"My mom once said that people don't come to live in Canmore because of the skiing or the mountains. She said that they come to Canmore because they're looking for something.

"What's that?" He spoke finally.

I shrugged. "Whatever it is they need to find."

* * *

**_so what do you guys think??_**


	8. The Holidays

**_AAAHH,you guys! I'm so sorry, i'm super late!!!! K, so at first i had really bad writer's block and then my flash drive where i was keeping this story...stopped working! i had to send it to WI to get it looked at and there's no way to know for sure that I'm going to get everything back, so i had to re-write this chapter from memory!!!_**

**_Anyway, I hope you guys like it after all it has been like 3 weeks or something, hasn't it??_**

**_Dislcaimer: I own nothing at all!!_**

* * *

Chapter 8: The Holidays

_**"Mankind must remember that peace is not God's gift to his creatures; peace is our gift to each other." ~ Elie Wiesel**_

I missed having Emma around. Except for the morning after she'd gotten home. She started moving around the kitchen, slamming pots and pans together at seven am. Then, the turned on the coffee pot and there was no more sleeping in for me.

I padded out to the kitchen and leaned against the kitchen counter, watching Em throw this and that into the pan on the stove like she knew what she was doing.

"Good morning dear loving sister!" She trilled. She paused in her cooking to pour me a cup of coffee and fixed it just the way I liked. "Coffee?"

I took a deep sip and then looked over at her concoction. "What are you making and why so freaking early?"

"I'm still on final's schedule." Emma smirked. "I'm making eggs Benedict and cinnamon rolls."

"What? I'm sorry, I must still be asleep."

"Eggs….Benedict…" She tipped the pan to show me the yellow sauce. "And…Cinnamon…rolls…." She opened the oven door a little to show me the rolls quietly rising in the oven.

"Where did you learn to cook? I thought you were an art major."

"I still am. But I learned at University."

"At least you're getting your tuition's worth." I sniffed.

"Try my Hollandaise sauce?" She held up a spoon.

I leaned forward and took a sip. "It's good…really good."

"So I noticed the Chinese leftovers in the fridge-" She began.

"Oh, Mrs. Wong wants you to call her."

Emma smiled. "Right, right. But I noticed how little leftovers there were."

"And? Babe, it's too early for me to draw my own conclusions. What's your point?" I took another huge sip of coffee.

"Who did you eat the Chinese with?" Emma accused, pointing at me with her wooden spoon. "You always order way more than you should and then we pig out on it for like a week! Don't say Dee or Paul, neither of them like Chinese!"

I shrugged and drank half the mug.

"I see. So, does that mean you kissed him?"

"No, it does not mean that, Emma Renee."

"Oh my God, Kayla!" Emma's eyes blazed as she put her hands on her hips in frustration. "Why the hell not?!"

"It's not as simple as you think it is," I repeated what Logan said to me two days earlier.

"What is so complicated about grabbing him and kissing him?" Emma wondered.

"See, that would just make everything ten times more complicated than it already is-!" Suddenly the kitchen was full of loud buzzing and I jumped about a foot in the air. "Jesus! Is it always that loud?"

"I don't get it." Emma shook her head, ignoring my outburst, and leaned down to take the cinnamon rolls out of the oven. "I just don't get it."

"You're still a baby," I picked off a bit of sugar and winced as it burned my tongue.

"I'm eighteen, not a baby," Emma insisted.

I leaned forward and kissed her cheek. "You'll always be a baby to me."

"Oh joy," she sighed.

I hopped up on the counter and winced when the motion sent a nasty little shock through my bad arm.

"So this is the bad one?" Emma took hold of my arm and inspected it.

"Yep. It's much better now, but it aches when the weather changes. My leg too." I told her.

"So you're our little weather meter, then?"

"Only if you feed me." I held out a plate.

Emma smiled and lifted a roll out of the pan and put it on the plate. "You are so going to get spoiled while I'm here."

"Don't you think I deserve a little spoiling? After having raised you?"

* * *

"_As Fox was going along he met a Deer with two spotted fawns beside her. 'What have you done,' said he, 'to make your children spotted like that?'_

"_I made a big fire of cedar wood and placed them before it. The sparks thrown off the burned spots which you see,' answered the Deer-"_

"Honey, I'm home!" Emma called as she came in the door interrupting my reading.

"Hi dear, how was your day?" I replied, marking my page and closed the book. I stretched and jumped off the couch where I'd been curled up all day reading.

"I brought stuff to make tonight!" She chirped as I came into the kitchen.

"What'd ya bring me?" I peeked over the fridge door.

"Stuff to make a cake and some champagne and beer and a few other fun things." Emma slipped her apron off and laid it on the counter, taking her tips out, smiling to herself.

"What are you so happy about?" I asked, slightly suspicious. I followed her to her room and curled up on her bed. It was more comfortable than mine was, maybe because I didn't sleep in it every night and because since she'd been gone I couldn't bring myself to go into her room. As I laid my head down on the mattress, I noticed a blue blouse and picked it up.

"Nothing!" Emma pulled a long sleeve shirt over her shoulders. "Nothing at all."

"Oh, come on spill!" I insisted as I inspected the blouse and considered stealing it.

She glanced at me. "Aren't you going to change?"

I snorted. "It's a few teachers from school, your friends from high school and Dee and Paul. They saw me last year when I had bronchitis, remember?" I shuddered. That was not a pretty time for me; I hardly got out of bed for about two weeks. The doctor even prescribed me an inhaler for about two months. "They are going to be totally fine with me in sweatpants."

Emma shot me a sneaky glance. "Well, I invited someone else."

"Who?" I seriously considered sneaking the blouse back to my room before Emma went back to school.

"Your _friend_ Logan."

I dropped the blouse and looked at her. "You did what now?"

"I invited Logan to New Years Eve and you were right."

"About what?"

"He does have nice bone structure."

"Emma-

"I was totally cool," Emma started brushing her hair out. "I was driving home and I ran into Dee who was picking up Paul and they were talking to a guy, I assumed was Logan," she shrugged. "It was and I asked him what he was doing for New Years, he said nothing. So I told him to come hang out with us. I assured him it was low key, I would be cooking and that you wouldn't be anywhere near the kitchen. Say something please."

"What am I supposed to say?" I threw up my hands in surrender. "I have no words."

"You could ask if he was coming."

I rolled my eyes and threw her a bone. "Fine. Is he coming?"

Emma was smug. "Well, duh. As soon as I mentioned you, he agreed. And grinned like a moron."

"Oh really?" I wondered sarcastically.

"Uh yeah…" Emma placed her hand on her hip. "Go get changed out of those sweatpants. I'll start cooking."

"I haven't done laundry in like two weeks, I've got nothing to wear!" I groaned.

Emma stopped and cocked her head to one side considering me. "Do you still have those dark wash jeans?"

"Yeah…" they were crumpled up on the floor next to my bed.

"Those, the blue blouse and that white undershirt. And the silver snowflake necklace that Dee got you last year for Christmas."

"How do you know-"

"Go change!" She tried to shove me through the door. "Now! They're gonna be here in less than an hour!"

That less than an hour went by awfully fast, I realized as the doorbell rang and I was still brushing my hair. "Emma! The door!"

"Kayla! Quit primping and get your ass out here!" Emma yelled back as I heard her open the door and then Dee's laugh over everything else.

I gave my hair one last stroke and straightened my necklace a little before I came out of. "I am not primping! I was getting dressed as per your orders," I told Emma as I walked into the kitchen. I gave Dee and Paul hugs and then smiled at Logan who gave me right one back.

"What were you going to wear?" Dee as she twirled me around.

"What I was wearing earlier." I grinned. "Sweatpants and my undershirt; I was reading." I told their curious looks.

"Ah, hem!" Emma announced from behind the island and set a huge cake on the counter beside the huge piles of food which I never saw her make. "I present my most decedent creation to date: my cinnamon-sugar cake with chocolate butter-cream frosting."

We all clapped for her as Dee got a few beers out of the fridge. "So where did you learn all this, Em?"

"University." Em and I chorused and laughed at our private joke. The door bell sounded and Em ran toward it. A few seconds later, five or six girlish squeals made Dee, Paul, Logan and I cover our ears as a bunch of Em's high school friends came in. Paul and Dee scooted toward the food, leaving Logan and I alone at the counter.

"So, this is normal for New Years?" He asked underneath all the din.

I shrugged. "For us? Pretty much yeah. We're not very formal, if you couldn't already tell. I mean, some people make a big production and stuff but…"

"I like it." He told me with that half smile of his.

"It's not perfect," I took a sip of the beer that Dee had gotten out of the fridge. "But it works in a weird way."

"I can see that. So, when did this-" he pointed at the food. "-all start?"

"Emma's cooking thing? Uh, when she came home from University. I don't know, she never had an interest before. I'm mean, she's an art major."

"Really? Art?" He glanced around and then noticed a few of the paintings we'd put up; one of a bright blue horse in a yellow field, one of Dee and I, and one of our mother, her and me when we were younger. "She's good."

"Be prepared though." I warned him. "Now that you've been accepted into the group, you will be considered subject matter and will be fodder for her 'creative output'."

Logan chuckled. "That is really what she calls it?"

"She's…Emma." I grinned. "That's all I can say."

* * *

About ten thirty, after most of the food had been consumed, and everyone was listening intently to one of Emma's university stories, I realized that I didn't see Logan in a while. I poked my head into every possible place and then I glanced out the back door.

I grabbed a jacket and crept outside as well. Apparently though, I wasn't as quiet as I thought I was; the door must have creaked because he turned. "Sick of us already?" I asked.

"No," he shook his head. "Just a little fresh air."

I glanced up and saw the twinkle lights that Paul put up for us before Christmas, and beyond them, the stars blinking out from beyond the dark blue black of the sky. The night was clear, not even a wisp of a cloud on the tops of the mountains. The moon was only at half crescent and shone brightly among the crown of stars.

"This," he gestured up at the sky. "This is what I came for."

"Too many city lights where you're from?" I wondered as I stood next to him.

"Depends on where I was."

"Where have you been?"

"I think the real question is; where haven't I been?" But the tone in his voice seemed to indicate that I shouldn't ask where he'd been.

"That much traveling?" I grinned. "I'm kinda jealous."

He shook his head. "You shouldn't be, really."

"The farthest I've ever been from Canmore is Toronto." I supplied. "I've never really been anywhere, I've always been too busy, first with school, then with Mom getting sick and then taking care of Emma."

"How did she die?" he asked then his eyes softened just a little. "Sorry, you don't have to tell if you don't want to."

"No, it's fine. I mean, I bring her up all the time; she's practically our patron saint." He grinned at that. "Do you want the short version or the long version? Word to the wise, though, it's a sad story. Not a good one for New Years."

"I can handle it," he assured me.

"Fine. Just remember, you asked for it." We sat in the only chairs without snow and I told him the whole story about Emma's father and his accident and how we came to Canmore and then how she got sick. "…they put her on so much morphine in the end, she hardly recognized us. She kept seeing Christopher and she was almost happy to go…Happy to be with him again."

"And you believe that? That she's with him? Where ever it is they are?" He gestured up at the winding velvet blue sky.

I looked up and smiled, feeling that maybe Mom was smiling down on me even now. "Yeah, I do…"

"I'm sorry," he whispered gruffly. "She didn't deserve that."

"No, she didn't…" I swallowed.

"Neither did Emma."

I couldn't say anything.

"Neither did you."

I smiled through the prickling tears. "Thank you." I wiped my eyes. "So, what about you?"

"What about me?" he challenged.

"Well, you've never talked about your family except for the brother you don't speak to. There has to be a story in there somewhere." I reasoned.

Logan was quiet for a moment. "I may not be able to tell you everything…"

"How much will you not tell me?" I wondered.

"Details." He assured me.

"Fair enough. On you go…" I prompted with a wave of my hand.

"It's a long sad story," he repeated my words back to me with his cheeky grin. "Not a good one for New Years."

"I can handle it."

"Remember," he pointed at me. "You asked for it."

However, I was almost wished that I hadn't asked. His story was eerily parallel to mine, I realized as he started to tell it. He was raised as another man's son, Victor's father, and watched his foster father murdered by his biological father. "…And so, we ran." He shrugged. "As far and as fast as we could."

I sat back in the chair, shaking my head. "And your mother…? She never came after you?"

Logan waved his hand as if brushing the thought aside. "Nah, she was better off…" But I saw the hurt there, at the death of one parent, and the abandonment of the other. He hid it with sarcasm and humor; it detached him from anything else that could hurt him. Especially after the war and all the horror he'd lived through.

It killed me to know that he had to do that to keep himself sane, but at the same time I could see the mirror he held up to me, that beneath it all, we were both in some way, shape or form the same scared kids we'd been when the world we knew came crashing down around us.

I retreated into my sister's love, putting her needs before my own, creating the family I so desperately needed to deal with my mother's death, her family's disapproval at my birth. That was where I hid myself.

"No," I whispered while breaking the touch barrier that we'd created since the hospital. "She made a huge mistake letting you both go." I reached over and placed my hand on his.

He had his other hand pressed to his mouth as he considered my input, glancing at our hands. Then, slowly, his fingers twisted around mine in response. He smiled a real smile that time, not the cheeky half smile or the one that he put on for other people, but one that reached all the way up to his eyes. "I don't know about that."

"Well, then maybe she didn't deserve you."

That he laughed at. "I wouldn't go that far."

I sniffed. "She obviously never knew you."

"You seem awfully sure of yourself."

"It's not every day that you meet someone with such 'a whacked sense of honor'." I smiled at him.

"You're not so bad yourself." He replied with a smile of his own.

Suddenly, I could hear everyone inside starting to count down to the New Year; "…10…9…" I looked over at Logan, who only looked at me and I felt a shift in the universe. It wasn't earth-shattering or noticeable by other people. It was as if we had stepped outside time or space, or the ordinary rules that governed the world. We were going to make our own.

"…8…7…" He sat up in his chair, as well. We were so close, our knees were almost touching.

"…6…5…"

I didn't plan this; I didn't want any of this. But I couldn't help it. I didn't notice the cold so much now that his hands had found mine. I was so close; I was getting dizzy with the smell of tobacco and sandalwood and just plain soap. I couldn't help myself as I shifted a little closer; our eyes never leaving each other.

"…4…3…"

Tomorrow, I would hate myself. Tomorrow, I would deal with it. But at the moment, I just didn't care as his hand slipped up to my neck and I tilted my chin upward.

"…2…1…HAPPY NEW YEARS!" Inside there was cheering and shouting but it definitely went on the back burner for me.

I was so absorbed that I didn't even hear the backdoor creak open, then there was a sudden flash of light and Emma's cackle.

I whipped my head around to see Emma standing in the doorway, camera in hand, an evil smile on her lips. "Well, that is a keeper!"

* * *

**_so, what do you guys think????_**


	9. The Wedding pt 1

**_So i come bearing the next chapter to make up for last week!!! But I'm glad you guys like it!! _**

**_Disclaimer: I own nothing, especially not the music, that is Ella Fitzgerald and if you don't know who she is, go get on itunes cuz u won't be sorry!!_**

* * *

Chapter 9: The Wedding Pt.1

"_**I have tried in my way to be free."~ Leonard Cohen.**_

The wedding seemed a lot closer on the other side of New Years. By February, we'd started making up the RSVP list with the responses we'd gotten. In March, we ordered the flowers from a shop in Calgary. In April, Dee went to go test cakes (Paul, unfortunately got to go with her on that trip), and one of the few major things to put together in May was the decorations.

I could hardly believe that it was only a week until the wedding, so far the only things left on the checklist was to do final dress checks for Emma, Dee and me, putting up the decorations we'd finished yesterday and then picking up the tables and chairs since Dee decided to have the wedding and reception at her house.

"Shit!" I read over the list for the twelfth time it seemed like. "The tablecloths! Where are they?!"

"Probably finished being washed," Emma replied from the tailor's stool in the dress shop in Calgary. "And sitting in the washer."

"Okay, good." I checked it off the list.

"So how's the final tally looking?" Dee asked when she had taken off her dress after it had been altered for the last time.

"Good. The only things left to do are: final dress check-"

"Check!" Emma called out.

"Putting up the decorations, tablecloths and finish the table decorations-Emma, you're not getting out of that- ," I listed off. "Call the minister, the final RSVP list, manicures and pedicures on Friday afternoon-please don't forget four o'clock, guys-, picking up the cake, triple check the reservations for the honeymoon, and check the food for the reception."

"We are going to be working toward this wedding forever!" Emma rolled her eyes.

"Nope, because the wedding is going to happen next week no matter how unprepared we are," I replied.

"When I get married," Emma predicted. "There will none of this. You'll show up, I'll get married, I don't care what you wear because I'm going to wear jeans."

"You are not!" I retorted. "I will make sure that you're going to have a nice wedding."

"It will be nice! It won't be any trouble!"

"You're impossible!" Dee snorted as she re-adjusted the sash around Em's waist until she had it just the way she wanted it. The cream sash gathered the satin at the empire waist and then it fell nearly straight to the ground.

Emma only shrugged. "It's nothing new."

"I can vouch for that."

Then, Emma smiled evilly as the tailor was doing a quick hem on the bottom of her dress. She piled her hair on the top of her head and then let it fall as if testing out something to do with her hair for the wedding.

"So, Makayla Rose," I ground my teeth at her use of my full name, "how are things with Logan?" She teased.

Emma hadn't let me live it down since the New Years debacle. During the next semester at school, not one phone call went by without her asking that dreaded question, hoping the answer would change. And to her great disappointment, it never did.

"We're friends." I insisted, getting very sick of answering that particular question. And we were. After New Years and especially after Emma went back to school for the next semester, somehow Logan and I always seemed to run into each other. At first, it was a little awkward, considering the near-kiss and all, but then it became normal to see him after the first two weeks. We ate at the diner in town together, and he found out about my little coffee addiction, I told him every Emma story I had, and there was always Chinese night which became a staple for us. A part of me was guilty that I was sharing this was him when it was something that was a tradition for Emma and I. But it nice to have him there, to know that I could lean on him when I needed to. "Just friends." I said again, for all of our benefits.

Dee and Em shared a withering glance and then rolled their eyes at each other.

"What?" I wondered throwing up my hands. "What now?"

"Nothing," Dee sighed as Emma stepped down from the stool. Dee handed me my dress and indicated that it was my turn finally. I took it and changed in one of the back rooms. When I came back out and stepped up on the stool, Dee started fiddling with the dress, adjusting the sash until she had it just like Emma's.

For bridesmaid dresses, they were definitely not hideous and I'd seen a few with poofy sleeves bigger than the wearer's head. The dresses truly were a mark of how much Dee loved us both; the dark lavender satin a-line empire waists agreed with both our shapes and complexions.

"You know we only bug you because we love you." Dee told me quietly.

"That and we want to try to save you some trouble," Emma threw in.

"What do you mean by that?" I snapped.

"Dee," Emma placed her hand on Dee's shoulder. "I got this, okay?" She turned back to me. "You almost kissed him five MONTHS ago. What the hell is wrong with you? Why can't you close the deal?"

"I told you!" I retorted, pressing my fingers against my forehead. "He only wants to be friends….he hasn't tried anything since then. Besides I've been so busy lately with school and the wedding…."

Dee rolled her eyes. "…God…not that again."

"What?" Emma and I chorused.

"That crap she keeps sprouting about him just wanting to be friends! Have you seen the way he looks at her? It's like he's looking at the sun shine for the first time in years."

"Oh, I know!" Emma gushed as if I weren't there. "But this one," she swatted me on the behind. "Is completely blind."

I wasn't. I saw it, just like everyone else. I just put it out of my mind because I wasn't supposed to feel this way about him. I wasn't supposed to wish that Emma hadn't interrupted us on New Years, I wasn't supposed to look forward to seeing him, and I certainly was not supposed to get emotionally attached. Not like this, it wasn't supposed to be this way. Jesus, I was in deep.

The tailor stepped back, clapping her hands, signally that she was done. "Lovely," she said "Certainly able to make sure that man of yours won't look anywhere else."

Em and Dee both found this incredibly hilarious.

* * *

Dee and I were putting together the table decorations, which Emma conveniently scheduled a shift at the Wong's to miss, when we heard what might have been thunder. Instinctively, we looked up and saw that the sky was totally clear.

"What is that God awful sound?" Dee got up and I followed her into the driveway.

"Maybe it's someone's car?" I suggested as the sound grew louder and louder.

"Someone needs to check their transmission," Dee shook her head in disgust.

The trees clouded most of our vision and it wasn't until he came around the last bend before Dee's driveway that we could see that it wasn't a defective transmission on a car, it was a defective transmission on a motorcycle.

"Well, well, well." Dee smirked. "If it isn't your _friend_…"

"Shut up," I growled and went to meet him in the middle of the driveway. Logan'd been talking about buying a motorcycle for months now, since March actually. A guy he'd met down near Calgary had a bike he'd been trying to get rid of for weeks. But I couldn't believe he'd actually gone through it. "You didn't!" I yelled over the roar of the motor.

He cut the engine, smiling coyly up at me. "I did. Do you like it?"

I walked in a circle, surveying it not really knowing what I was looking for. "You're going to kill yourself…"

"No, I won't!" He snorted. "Quit being dramatic!"

"Yes, you will. And I am not going to cry at your funeral because I will have told you so!"

He rolled his eyes. "Come for a ride with me," he offered. "Come on and be stupid with me for a little while."

It was a tempting offer, I had to admit. He was beginning to read me too, because saying no to that half smile was almost too hard, especially when he looked so excited. "I don't know…" I gestured back at Dee and all of our work to be done. "We've got a lot to do…"

"Hey, Dee!" He called to her. "Could I steal her away for a little while?"

"She's all yours!" Dee called back and started singing Ella Fitzgerald.

"_I've got a crush on someone…_

_Guess who…_

_I've got a crush on you, sweetie pie._

_All the day and night time, hear me sigh…"_

Logan smiled. "Dee seems okay with it," he tried to persuade me.

I glanced back at Dee, who gave me the thumbs up, all the while singing as she went back to work:

"_I never had the least notion  
That I could fall with such emotion.."_

"Fine." I relented, partly because I needed to get away from Dee's teasing and partly because it did look like fun. "One ride, that's it. No tricks, no stunts, no cliffs, no jumping off stuff-" He cut off my listing when he revved the engine. I hopped on, looped my arms around his waist and squeezed my eyes shut as I felt us swing around and zoomed back onto the road.

"Open your eyes!" I heard him shout as we drove.

"No way!" I screeched back.

"Oh come on! Stop being a chicken! Live a little!"

I did, but I couldn't see anything at first. We whipped by the trees so fast they were nothing but a green blur as I adjusted to the speed. When we zipped through town, which was only about five minutes or so, I cringed as we passed the Wong's thinking of Emma. But I let the thought fly away with the wind and I held on tighter.

I'd always noticed how broad his shoulders were, how well they filled out his shirts, but I'd never got to appreciate him from this particular angle. From what I could feel, it was like he'd been cut from a slab of granite. Solid but inviting, warm just like leather left out in the sun for a few hours. Then briefly I wondered what he'd look like without a shirt…I shook my head to rid myself of that thought loose and let it join the other one.

We cascaded over the roads, climbing a few of the hills over Canmore and I watched it grow smaller and smaller as it faded from view. And strangely, the farther we rode from town, more and more quiet my worries became; what Emma would think, about Dee and how she would smirk at me. Instead, I focused on the road before us, wondering, not worrying, fleetingly where we were going. But I didn't care enough to ask, it didn't matter where we were going, just that we were.

We were riding a wave, it seemed. We were surfing the mountains as we climbed higher and higher. Canmore became smaller still.

A little laugh of exuberance rippled out of me before I could stop it. It became a louder one until I couldn't hold it in. They bubbled out, releasing something out into the universe; my fear, my apprehension, everything else that I'd been keeping locked away.

When we crested a small plateau, the whole bright blue sky opened up for us and for a moment, I swear we were flying. Giggling a little, I let go of him and threw my hands up letting out a loud "Yawp!" or two.

Logan laughed out at my "Yawp!" but didn't join in. He slowed the bike down to a stop, on a ledge overlooking Canmore.

"Wow…" I breathed, taking in the sight around us.

"Yep." He agreed as he put down the kick stand. "So what do you think?"

"Of what?"

"The bike. I mean I'm going to have to work on it, fix up the engine."

"That and Dee says you need to check the transmission. We heard you at least a mile and a half away. But you're going to kill yourself," I repeated.

"I am not." He argued and twisted around to look at me. "Really."

I shrugged. "If you say so."

He smiled. "What was that thing you yelled earlier?"

"What thing?"

"The 'yelp' or whatever it was…"

"I was sounding my barbaric yawp…." I got off the bike and stepped over to the edge of the cliff, feeling the wind push my hair back over my shoulders. "From Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself"". I turned around and held out my arms like I'd done before. "'The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering./I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,/I sound my barbaric YAWP over the roofs of the world.'!" My voice echoed against the cliff faces and ledges, surrounding me a few times before it was stolen by the wind.

His eyebrows came together in confusion and amusement when I came back and leaned against the front of the bike. "I think you are the strangest woman I've ever met." He concluded finally.

"I wouldn't say strangest…unique would be a better word."

"Unique, then. You are the most unique woman I have ever met." But I didn't hear any of it, I was too busy staring at his smile, wondering what if would feel like against my lips, if he'd put his hand against the back of my neck again-"What? I'm sorry, I missed that."

He chuckled. "Yeah, I figured that…" He suddenly stood up and leaned forward. I knew exactly what would come next and this time I wasn't going to do a thing to stop it.

"No tricks remember?" I whispered with a smile when his face was only a few inches from mine.

"No tricks," he promised and cupped his hand around my neck like I hoped he would and pulled me forward. I didn't hold back, because there was no Emma to ruin the moment.

Like always, Logan surprised me. He seemed like the type who'd take a kiss, not give one, but that's what he did as he covered my other hand with his other one. I shouldn't have, but really, I shouldn't have wanted it as much as I did, but it was too late and simply enjoyed the feeling of his mouth on mine.

It was sweet, but was over way too quick. He suddenly pulled away, like he was ashamed of what we'd done. It would make more sense for me to feel shameful but not him. Surprisingly, I wasn't. I should have been but I wasn't.

Logan ran his thumb across my chin, just brushing my lower lip as he held me back. He was so…I didn't even know if there was a word for what I read in his eyes.

"What's wrong?" I whispered even though we were the only two for miles.

He shook his head. "It's nothing."

"Well, it's not nothing because you look worried," I cocked my head to one side. "You can tell me."

"I will but…I'd better get you back, Dee probably needs your help." He let his hand drop and he started the bike again.

I ran my hand through my hair as I jumped back on behind him. "Yeah, okay."

The ride back down to Dee's was uneventful and when I went to get off in Dee's driveway, I turned around. "You are coming to the wedding, right?"

He nodded. "Yeah, I'll be there."

"I guess I'll see you then." I waved as he backed out of the driveway he only smiled briefly before he disappeared down the road. For the first time in a very long time, I was completely confused.

* * *

_**....so yeah, i kinda skipped a head a few months but the next chapter is gonna be awsome and then we are seriously gonna have to strap in for the ride to come!!**_


	10. The Wedding Pt 2

**_So, I just thought I get this chapter out there for you guys since I'm going on vacation for two weeks and I don't know how much writing I'll be getting done and then i have the last few days of my internship when i get back._**

**_but i know you all would love to see how the wedding goes off so here you go, my last gift to you for a while!!_**

**_Disclaimer: I own nothing at all, not even the music._**

* * *

Chapter 10: The Wedding pt. 2

"_**And yet there is no shame in us and no regret. We say to ourselves that we are a wretch and a traitor. But we feel no burden upon our spirit and no fear in our heart. And it seems to us that our spirit is clear as a lake troubled by no eyes save those of the sun. And in our heart-strange are the ways of evil!-in our heart there is the first peace we have known..."~ Ayn Rand "Anthem"**_

"Ouch! Watch it Kay, the hair is still attached to the head!" Emma cried out as I pinned the gardenia into her hair.

"Sorry," I patted down a few extra hairs.

"You've been all spacey for a week, what's up?" She wondered as I plopped down next to her. She pulled out her blush and padded her cheeks with it.

"I have no idea what you're talking about." I retorted without looking at her.

"Um, last week you tried to leave the house with your shirt inside out, you forgot to order the egg rolls," she listed off. "You almost gave us all bright pink nails at the salon and ….you burned the coffee this morning."

"We've all been stressed and scatterbrained all week," I replied running my hand down my left leg, the weather was due to change and I'd been feeling it all week.

"You never burn coffee," Emma muttered as she fixed her mascara. "It's like sacrilege to you to you or something."

"Seriously, Em…." I groaned. "What is your point?"

Emma rolled her eyes. "Fine. Why are you so spacey? It's not like you."

"I'm fine." I insisted.

"I didn't ask if you were fine, I asked why you're so spacey."

"Can we talk about it later?" I wondered.

"Will you tell me later?"

"If you stop bugging me."

"Fine. Mirror!" Emma called and we stood in front of each other, tucking back stray hairs and re-adjusting dress straps and sash bows.

"Perfect," I declared her and grabbed my flowers.

"So are you. Ready?" She motioned for me to follow her out to the foyer to meet up with Dee and her father.

"Let's go!"

As we waited in line the dining room for the music to start, I glanced back at Dee. Her long auburn hair had been pulled back into an elegant chignon, pinned with gardenias like Emma and me. She pulled her shimmering veil over her face, smoothing her cream complexion into that of a porcelain doll's. Her huge blue eyes were even wider today with the make-up we applied.

Dee looked past her father's arm and smiled at me.

_Love you_ I mouthed to her.

Her blue eyes were glassy for a second. _Love you, too_.

Suddenly the music started, shocking me back to reality. I gripped my bouquet, took a deep breath and then started to walk. As I walked, I passed all of our friends, all of the kids we taught, our whole town was gathered in Dee's back yard.

True to his word, Logan was there in the third row on Paul's side. He watched me walk past with that same sort of wonder I'd seen on his face at the site when we'd first met.

I only smiled and took my place beside the minister, watching Emma walk down the aisle too.

The rest of wedding went off without too many hitches; the toasts were given including mine, before everyone was too drunk, and no one laughed too hard at Emma's toast and funny faces.

My favorite part of any wedding, the first dance, began with the first few bars of Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong's "The Nearness of You" came on. Everyone oohed and ahhed, clapped and whistled as Dee and Paul took the stage. They invited anyone else who wanted to dance to join them. Dee looked especially at me when I propped my aching leg up on an empty chair.

Since the cast had been removed and I didn't have to wear the brace, I found that when the weather changed, it felt like someone was attempting to play "Chopsticks" on my leg and knee. When I got home from all this, I was going to soak my leg for the rest of the night.

Emma poked me and I leaned toward her. "What?" I whispered as I took my heels off.

"They're so cute…" Emma grinned. She showed me her camera. "I'm gonna go get pictures."

"For us or for your 'creative output'?" I wondered sarcastically.

"Both." And then she vanished.

I watched Emma circle around the makeshift dance floor, snapping pictures from every available angle, glancing up at the twinkle lights as if they offended her. Her face, like Dee's was flushed and excited. She looked so much like Mom when she was alive, so real as she flitted back and forth, saying hello to everyone and smiling and laughing.

I lost her after a while in the crowd, and turned my attention back toward Dee and Paul's dance. I settled back into my seat, ignoring the ache in my leg, thinking how nice this all had turned out. We'd managed it, somehow.

When the first dance ended, a new one came up. Billie Holiday's "It Had to be You." Just then, one of Paul's Best Man leaned toward me. I claimed to be a psychic and here I was almost hearing the invitation to dance before it left his lips.

"No dancing for you?" Logan appeared next to me, pulling up Em's empty chair. The Best Man took one look at Logan and leaned back into his chair.

"Nah," I shook my head. "I'm not a good dancer anyway. You?"

Logan shook his head as well. "I don't dance."

"You don't or you won't?"

He shrugged. "Doesn't matter. The one I would dance with, can't."

"Yeah?" I asked, glancing around to see a few of Dee and my fellow female teachers eyeing him. They probably would have if Dee hadn't threatened them within an inch of their lives. "That's too bad because I'm sure you'd have plenty of takers."

Logan followed my gaze for a second and then back at me. "Nope. There's only one person I want to dance with. Just one."

"How about a walk then?" I eased my foot to the floor and used the chair for support until Logan caught my arm. "I need to stretch out my tendons."

"I thought you liked Billie Holiday," he gestured to the dance floor.

"Who told you that?"

"Well, you play her all the time and Emma…" he pointed to where she was conveniently standing on the opposite side of the dance floor from us. "kept hinting that you loved this song."

"I see." I slipped my hand into his and pulled him away from the party. "You should ignore her, I do."

But as we walked, I could still hear Billie singing. I sang along with her in my head, the words as familiar as my friends' names.

"_For nobody else  
Gave me a thrill  
With all your faults  
I love you still  
It had to be you  
Wonderful you  
It had to be you…."_ Sometimes I honestly wondered if there was such a thing as fate because it seemed just too ironic that my favorite Billie Holiday song was "It Had to Be You" and there I was taking a moonlit walk with whom else but Logan.

I let out a little laugh at myself then stopped when Logan shot me a confused glance.

"It's nothing…"

"What?" He wondered as if he really wanted to know

"Life is a funny, funny thing is all."

"You're just now figuring that out?"

"No," I shook my head. "I knew that. It's just weird when it hits you in the face, that's all."

When he didn't say anything, I glanced up at him and saw his downcast stare, the tension in his jaw line. "Is something wrong?" I squeezed his hand.

He didn't look at me. "No, nothing's wrong."

"You're lying."

"And how would you know?"

I pointed to his face. "I told you, your eyes always give you away."

"You don't want to know. Really."

"Is this about last week? About how you…?"

He stopped, his hand suddenly gripping mine for a moment. "You really want to know?"

I could say no. No, I just want be friends. No, I can't do this. I can't be what you want; I'm a fraud, a fake. None of this is real, not in the way you want it.

He needed this, to bleed this out. And I realized that all I wanted was for him to smile again. So, I nodded. "I told you that you can tell me whatever." I sat on Dee's garden wall, half way between the backyard and the front. I could still hear the music and see the lights but they couldn't see us unless they came looking.

He stopped pacing and sat next to me. "I'm going to tell you something that no one but my brother knows. Because…you should know the whole truth. It's only fair to let you know what you're getting yourself into."

I nodded solemnly, knowing what he was going to tell me already.

He took a deep breath. "I was born in 1832…." But Stryker hadn't told me nearly half the things that Logan did. Logan held nothing back, filling in the details he edited on New Years, all the wars, Stryker, Weapon X, why he left. The claws that he saved for last and he held them out for me to see.

"Does it hurt?" I breathed, still trying to wrap my brain around all of it. Especially the fact that he was a hundred and forty one. "When they come out?"

"Every time." He sighed and pulled them back in, his hand hanging in the empty space between us.

I tried to find the words. "I-"

"I understand." He murmured. "If you'd…rather not-" He stopped short when I took his much larger hand in mine and pulled him back to me.

"Aren't you going to let me speak for myself?" I smirked and I inspected his hand like a fortune teller would; turning his hand over and over in mine, running my fingers down his knuckles. They were rough, full of calluses and tough patches. I remembered briefly when he kept me from falling on my ass in front of the Wong's, his hands warm on my waist.

"I didn't think that you'd think of me the same way if I told you."

I glanced down at our hands. "It doesn't matter to me…." And it didn't. Logan was still Logan. And I remembered what my mother had said to me all those years ago. "You are who you are-"

"'What' is more like it," he hung his head.

"No." I reached up, ran a hand from his temple down to his cheek with my other hand. "'Who'. Who you are. It doesn't change anything."

"Really?"

I let go of his hand and hopped down from the wall, wincing as my leg throbbed when my bare foot hit the ground.

"What are you-" he started to ask but I pressed my finger against his lower lip. His eyes widened at my boldness as I grabbed hold of his collar and pulled him down to me, showing him that it didn't matter to me. I knew all too well that I shouldn't, that it was wrong and I would only hurt us both later.

But when his arms came around my waist, his hands settling on my waist like he did all those months ago, I forgot everything else. It faded away and settled like the music from the reception in the background. My brain completely short circuited when I kissed him again.

Jesus, I forgot about kissing, about how his hand cupped the back of his neck, his thumb trailing across my neck. About how I weaved my fingers into his hair and pulling him down because I wanted him closer and closer still. I forgot how the right kiss made you forget about the world. For a blissful minute or two, there was no Stryker, no Victor, no Emma or Dee or Paul. I never had a mother or a broken heart or leg. All I know was that Logan's lips were on mine and his hands were on my neck and hip. And I couldn't get enough or it or him.

This wasn't part of the plan, the rational half of my brain screamed. This could only lead to bad things. I shivered as his hand ran down my spine and his other hand held me tight. Very very bad things.

Suddenly, I could hear someone call my name, very loudly and trampling around trying to make a lot of noise. Whoever it was knew we were out there. Three guesses said it was Emma.

With a groan of hatred toward my sister, I pulled away. "She's looking for me." I whispered.

"Let her look." He insisted, running his hand over my shoulder.

"Logan…" I sighed.

"Kayla?!" Emma was close.

"I bet it's to take pictures." I reasoned. "I promise there will be more of this," I pointed to the both of us. "When I'm done."

"Promise?"

Stretching up on my tiptoes, I kissed him just once and let him go. "Promise." And then I dashed back to meet Emma, hobbling a little as I did.

Emma was standing by the side of the house, her eyes trailed over me as I fixed my mussed hair. Her camera hung dangerously from her left hand and there was a gleam in her eye.

"Don't even think about it," I threatened.

Emma only laughed.

Once we got back to Dee, Paul and his groomsmen for pictures, I saw Dee and Em exchange little glances as Dee handed us our bouquets. Apparently blood wasn't thicker than water.

"Now," the photographer (Steve, the only guy in town with a decent camera) waved his hand to get our attention back to him. "Everyone smile! And a real smile, Kayla!"

Just then, Logan appeared behind Steve along with a few other guests, I couldn't keep the smile off my face as his eyes met mine.

"Very nice!" Steve commented as he took more. "You actually look like you're having fun!"

"I'll say!" Emma snorted under her breath.

"How about you find your own ride home? How fun does that sound?" I snarled through my smile.

"With that smile, I don't think I want to be at the house tonight anyway," Emma retorted as we posed again. "Not that I blame you, he is hot."

"Hey, hey!" I wrapped my arm around Dee's waist. "We may be sisters, but I don't share."

Dee whipped around, wide-eyed. "Oh my God! Kayla!" She squealed.

"You will both shut up right now, because he can probably hear you," I snapped when pictures were over, and I pulled them close.

"So what's the deal?" Emma poked me in the shoulder. "We want details."

I ran my hand through my hair. "I'm not entirely sure at the moment."

Emma rolled her eyes. "You just love to make this as difficult as possible don't you?"

"Yes I do." I retorted. "It's fun."

"Well," Dee's smile was wise and all knowing. "Go sit down, and prop your leg up. Emma will bring you cake." She motioned behind us and Logan appeared. "Logan, take Kayla to her seat and keep her company."

"Yes, ma'am." He saluted. "Very good, ma'am." And held out his arm to me.

As we walked away, I could hear Emma and Dee giggle. "You do know that we are never ever going to hear the end of this, don't you?"

He shrugged. "You know, we've been through worse."

"You don't know Dee or Em."

We spent the rest of the wedding sitting in our own corner while everyone else danced around us. But neither of us minded. Any time I was with Logan, the rest of the world just seemed to disappear anyway. From our little corner, we watched the garter and the bouquet being tossed, made no move to participate, partly because my leg hurt too much and partly because, like always, I liked being with him.

A few hours later, Emma came and perched herself on my lap. "Are you ready to go? I'm beat."

I grinned and tucked a few strands of hair behind her ears. "What? Dee doesn't need any help…?" I glanced around and realized that most of the yard had already been cleaned up and nearly all the guests were gone. "Wait…where did everyone go?"

Emma rolled her eyes. "It's almost midnight."

"Well, I suppose I should get you home then." Emma jumped up and Logan helped me to my feet.

"Are you going to be okay to walk?" He asked as Emma skipped ahead of us.

"I could always use a little help," I grinned as I slipped an arm around him and him around me.

He only smiled as he helped me to my car where Emma was waiting behind the wheel. She started fiddling with the radio and going through the console while I opened the passenger side door.

"So," I turned around to face him. "I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow." He agreed and kissed me only once because Emma was right there and we were in Dee's floodlights.

When he pulled away I watched him walk to his motorcycle and head off into the darkness. I sighed as I sat back in my seat and pulled the seatbelt on as Emma pulled out onto the road. I couldn't believe how much I hated being away from him.

"If you're going to throw your life away on a guy, he better have a motor cycle…" Emma muttered.

"You are so very funny!" I retorted

"Your lips are all puffy," she accused with a sidelong glance.

"Shut up…" I growled and put my hands over my face. "Just shut-up."

"Touchy!" Emma shrugged.

"I'm sorry," I sighed. "My leg is just killing me ."

"Fine, I'll get you home and you can boil your leg."

"Sounds like heaven." I replied as we pulled up the house. I couldn't say that I'd ever been so happy to be home. As soon as we were inside, I threw my shoes into the hallway and headed straight for my bathroom, tearing the gardenia out of my hair and starting to unzip my dress.

I stripped down to my underwear and turned the spigot on as hot as it would go. The ache had gotten so bad, I could barely think straight.

As I sat there on the bathroom floor, watching the hot water fill the bathtub, the steam rising in swirls and making my eyes water, I saw Emma's face swam before my eyes, her mirror blue eyes full of joy and her cheeks dimpled with a huge smile.

I heard Mom telling me to take care of Emma, to make sure she didn't do anything too impetuous.

Stryker extended his hand toward me, sealing all our deals. Behind him, Victor exposed his canines, a wild feral light in his eyes.

I leaned my forehead against the side of the bathtub, and let loose a few tears over what I'd done.

* * *

**_If any one can guess which tv sitcom I stole Emma's "If you're going to throw your life away on a guy, he better have a motor cycle" line, I will be very impressed._**

**_Anyway, peace out guys and see (Well i suppose write) you in AUgust!!!_**


	11. The First Summer

**_so i lied, I couldn't wait to get this chapter up for you guys. _**

**_Disclaimer: I own nothing at all. THe poem is by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae of the Canadian Army. he wrote it after the battle at Flander's Field. He actually wrote it, hated it and started to throw it away when one of his fellow soliders picked it up and told him to keep it._**

**_also a big thank you to BEAVERBOYXD, he helped me out with the Canada Day stuff. However, i didn't use as much as i thought i would, i hope you guys enjoy it anyway!!_**

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Chapter 11: The First Summer

"_**In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer"~ Albert Camus.**_

I told myself that it would just be for the summer. We'd be stupid and seventeen again, but just for the summer. I wouldn't let it go past that time that Emma left for school; it wouldn't be fair to either of us to drag it out.

Life went on though, strangely. Dee and Paul came home from their honeymoon, Emma continued with her job at the Wong's and I kept up with the job I always had during the summer; Dee and I tutored the older kids in the district for the University exams. Everything settled into a rhythm, a pattern that we all began to rely on.

But I forgot about silly things like rules and school and the pattern when Logan got off work and it was just the two of us, laughing or talking about everything and anything. Any extra time we had, we would spend it together, it didn't matter where (whether it was my kitchen counter, back patio, backyard, or even his apartment) as long as we were together.

Now that everything (Well everything on his side) was out in the open, he told me all sorts of stories, some funny, some sad but very few happy stories.

"_In Flanders Fields the poppies blow_…" I read out loud._  
__Between the crosses row on row,__  
__That mark our place; and in the sky__  
__The larks, still bravely singing, fly__  
__Scarce heard amid the guns below._

_We are the Dead. Short days ago__  
__We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,__  
__Loved and were loved, and now we lie__  
__In Flanders fields._

_Take up our quarrel with the foe:__  
__To you from failing hands we throw__  
__The torch; be yours to hold it high.__  
__If ye break faith with us who die__  
__We shall not sleep, though poppies grow__  
__In Flanders fields__…_So you knew John McCrae?"I asked when I had finished and pointed to the name on the page. "You met him?" It was a few days after Canada Day and Logan'd shown up after Emma'd left for work. We didn't do a lot of going out; mostly it was what we'd done before the wedding, just being together. He saw all my books and had been asking what I was reading. So I pulled out my favorite book of poetry and showed him.

He checked the name again. "Yep. I met him there."

"At Flanders' Field?"

He nodded. "Nice guy. Good doctor."

"How did you meet him?"

"Victor and I were on our way out and our platoon had to be checked out by the doctor. After he was done, the doctor sat down by the campfire we'd built and he wrote it all out. Took one look when he'd finished and threw it away. I grabbed it and told him to keep it."

"You saved it?"

He nodded again.

"You do realize that this is my favorite poem right?"

"You've only told me a hundred times."

I shook my head. "I can't believe this."

He only smiled and pushed a few strands of hair behind my ear.

I, on the other hand, admitted that I'd once been proposed to and was engaged for about a week before I called it off.

"What happened?" He asked.

"I just realized that I couldn't go through with it. That I was holding on because I was scared to let go. Mom was getting really sick and Emma was crying every night." Almost without my knowledge, his arm was around me. "I didn't love him."

"What was his name?"

"Patrick. Patrick McMinn."

He snorted. "So, he was a leprechaun."

"He was not! He was very cute and plenty tall."

"How'd you meet him?'  
"University. We were both going to be teachers. He got a job in Quebec. He's still there, I think."

He was quiet for a second.

"Hey." I kissed his cheek. "I'm not with him now, am I?"

"I supposed not." And he smiled at me and made my heart melt a little. But moments like that always made it harder. On a subconscious level that would take hold of me at some point later that night, railed at me that I knew that it was going to end, that I would be the one who would break his heart into a thousand pieces. Those nights, I would curl up into a ball under my covers; half wishing that I wouldn't wake the next morning and in the next second hoping with all my heart that my first request wouldn't come true. `

I forgot who I was who he was, on days when the sun would dip low and the birds would sing. It was a whole new world to see and live in. We weren't Kayla and Logan, I wasn't a horrible demon bitch who was lying to him all the time, and he wasn't a poster child for post-traumatic stress syndrome, we simply were on those Saturdays. We would find our way out into the backyard and lay down in the sun to forget the world we were living in, hoping against hope that we would be reborn into more. I always slept on my stomach, my head on my hands and he was on his back, his hands beneath his head.

Sometimes I would doze off and then wake up suddenly. I'd blink and when my vision cleared I looked over at him to see his eyes on me, a smile on his face. "What?" I murmured, rubbing my eyes.

"Nothing," he motioned for me to come closer.

I did and he reached over and untangled a few leaves from my hair, his fingers lingering, moving softly across my scalp, threading the strands between his fingers and tracing the outline of my ear.

Logan always did everything with such deliberateness, such precision. Even this little action seemed planned and measured; careful of how to keep his strength in check at all times. He insisted that he had to. He claimed to have been an animal, a wild uncontrollable monster that was just as likely to turn on a friend like he would an enemy.

"I know you'd never hurt me…" I informed him one late July Saturday.

By this time, I had looped my arm across his chest and he'd wrapped one around my shoulder. He liked to keep a hold on me when he told me about his brother or himself, as if to remind himself of where he was, who he was now.

"I might." He lifted up his hand into the sunlight to inspect it.

"You wouldn't."

"Kayla…" he sighed, getting ready to launch into the Kayla-why-are-you-so-stubborn-speech.

"No, I know you could. The potential is there." I said. "I mean I could flip out on you and stab you with a kitchen knife."

"Which wouldn't do much," he chuckled.

"Making a point here." I held up a finger to silence him. "My point is; I'm well aware of the fact that you can hurt me, I don't think you could actually do it."

He frowned and looked down at me." I don't want to hurt you."

"I'm not talking about wanting to, or not wanting to. I'm talking about crunch time and the fact that you wouldn't be able to do it."

He chuckled, and it rumbled through his chest. It was a comforting sound like the house settling while you try to fall asleep. I always closed my eyes to appreciate it. "Why is that?"

I shrugged. This was the part where I stood up on my hands, leaned over and kissed him until our discussion was the last thing on his mind.

I knew the real answer and so did he. But neither of us would admit why because there wouldn't be any hiding after that. There wouldn't be an easy way out, a summer. If we admitted it, summer would last forever and it couldn't be. I couldn't let it.

There were some days I wished it could be so, especially when we kissed and he would slide his hands up under the hem of my shirt, press his thumbs against my hipbones and hold me tight against him. Or when he'd murmur my name in my ear when he hugged me after we hadn't seen each other for a few days. It worried me how much I wished time would stop right at those moments. But those moments always ended and others came. More insistent, more heated.

Once, I found myself undoing a few of the buttons on his shirt and slipping my hand down the back of the neck as I felt the top of his smooth broad back beneath my fingers. He rested his forehead in the curve of my neck, whispering my name over and over.

I always came crashing back to reality, realizing that we couldn't be doing this. We'd agreed not to while Emma was there.

Emma was another problem. She was always on my back, asking questions about us.

"So, do you love him?" She asked one day while I was dropping her off at work.

"I don't know, Emma."

She rolled her eyes. "You never do."

"It's not one of those things you just know. You have to get to know the person first."

"Wow, you really suck the romance out of it, don't you?" Emma giggled.

"And what would you know?" I asked her.

"I know it's not a decision that you make, it just happens. You are resisting at every turn and I don't get why."

I only sighed. "Emma…you'll understand when you get older."

Even though I didn't want to see it, I was falling harder every day. Every day, I waited until four o'clock, anxious as a cat in a dog pound, until Logan got off work and every night, I had to pry myself away from him. We got so few hours that I didn't dare waste them.

But the day came when it was time for Emma to go back to school. We loaded up the Beast, as we'd taken to calling it and drove down to the Calgary train station.

We were both quiet, neither of us wanted to mark the miles as they passed. While, I realized that I'd survived last year's absence, I still didn't like it and that became apparent when she was getting ready to board. We both burst into tears.

"Don't forget me," she begged as she gripped my t-shirt between her fingers.

"Oh honey," I laughed through my tears. "I loved you first." And it was true. I could remember the first time I saw her.

_Christopher had grabbed me from the babysitter's early in the morning and drove me to the hospital. I asked question after question about my mother and new baby sister._

"_What's her name?" I wondered._

"_Emma Renee Frost." Christopher replied, a note of pride in his voice._

"_It's pretty," _

"_Just like her."_

_I remembered walking into the maternity ward, my sneakers sounding extra loud against the linoleum. Christopher led me down a hallway and then opened a door._

"_Mama!" I cried; I'd missed her more than I realized._

"_Shush, Kay." Mom chided gently as Christopher lifted me onto the bed. In her arms was a little pink bundle. "Do you want to meet your sister?"_

_I nodded, fascinated by the seemingly-intricate folds and swirls of the pale pink baby blanket._

_Mom lifted one flap and there was Emma, a blond curl over her forehead._

_I reached out and took one of her tiny fingers in mine. Miraculously, her fingers closed over mine and held tight, as if she was afraid to let go. In that instant, I loved her more so than I had anyone else._

"But you have this whole new life," she whispered. "And so do I. Nothing'll ever be the same."

"No, it won't. It can't be." I kissed her forehead. "But I won't ever love you less."

"What if you marry him?" She was six again as I held her in my arms.

"I'll still love you first."

Emma nodded and dried her tears. "I should go."

"I love you. Always have." I reminded her. I'd loved her from that first moment when her tiny little fingers gripped mine.

"Always will," she promised and hopped on the train.

I waved to her until the train was gone from sight, feeling my heart being torn in two. I couldn't let the summer end; I realized and went to the closest pay phone.

I threw in a few coins and dialed.

He picked up on the third ring. "Hello?"

"It's me," I whispered, the tears had leaked into the back of my throat and I couldn't talk any higher.

"Did Emma leave?"

"Yeah, I'll be home in an hour."

"I'll get the Chinese."

"Key's under the mat."

"I know. Be careful."

"I will."

We never said goodbye on the phone, but we hung up at the same time and I headed for my car.

I made it home in record time and as promised, I could smell Chinese as soon as I walked into the house. I set down the keys and my purse in the hallway and followed Paul McCartney's voice into the kitchen, where Logan was waiting for me on the counter.

He hopped down and held out his hand. I took it and pressed my face into his neck, breathing deeply to control the tears.

"Long day?" he wondered.

I grinned despite myself. "Very."

"I got your favorite."

I looked behind him and smiled again. I reached up and looped my arms around his neck. "This is what I want."

He grinned and kissed me, his hands pressing against my hip bones squeezing just enough to send electric shocks up and down my spine. His hands moved upward until they rested on my ribcage. He paused; this was where I always backed off and said: "No, we can't."

But I kept kissing him, kept winding my hands through his hair. I let one trail down and start to yank at his shirt. When I heard the buttons ping across the linoleum floor, we stopped as if we'd been struck by lightning.

"I don't want to stop," I admitted in a single breath.

"Then don't." We didn't speak again for a long while.

* * *

The shifting shadows of the trees made strange shapes on my ceiling. The shifting blue and black shapes were comforting and I was tired but wasn't ready to give into sleep, not yet. Amazingly, after all things considered, I was just drowsy, the good kind.

I glanced down to see Logan's serene sleeping face and I couldn't help but smile too. I pressed a kiss to his neck and extracted myself from his arms and grabbed the shirt I sort of ruined from off the floor.

I padded out to the bathroom and poured myself a glass of water, absent-mindedly braiding my hair back from my face. As I finished the glass and wandered back to my bed and Logan.

I'd only been gone a minute or two, but, apparently it was enough to send him into an all out nightmare.

He growled names in his sleep: "Stryker! Victor! No! NO! Stop! Don't!" and thrashed until he awoke with a gasp and sat up.

"Logan?" I called softly from the doorway as not to scare him too much.

He blinked twice and then seemed to remember where he was. He looked over at me, eyes wide with horror.

"Babe? Are you okay?" I sat down slightly behind him and placed a gentle hand on the center of his back. "Was it as bad as it looked?"

He grinned shakily at this. "I don't know. How bad was it?"

I pressed my lips to the base of his neck before I answered. "You were shouting about Stryker and Victor…You kept saying 'No' and 'Stop' and 'Don't'."

He let go of a deep breath and closed his eyes. "Just as bad then."

I looped my arms around his waist and was quiet. A moment passed, then another and I felt his hands cover mine. We sat there, just breathing deep until:

"Why are you wearing a shirt? If I remember correctly that was one of the first things to go." He twisted around with that cheeky smile of his.

"This is yours." I rolled my eyes. "I didn't want to wear you know…nothing…I was thirsty and it was close."

"Didn't you pull all the buttons off?" His hand hovered over mine where I was holding it closed. "In a hurry to get it off me?"

"Don't be smug!" I growled. "They were in the way. Besides," I slipped it off and ran my hand over his collarbone and then down his chest. "I haven't had nearly enough of this."

* * *

"Can I ask you something?" I wondered later still. The sun hadn't come up yet but it would in a few hours.

"What?" Logan asked looking down at me.

"Why did you rescue me that night in the bar?" I pressed my chin into my hand as I looked up at him.

"What was I supposed to do?" He laughed. "Let you get taken advantage of?"

"Really! I'm being serious, here!" I poked him hard in the ribs.

"Fine," he sighed and kissed the scar on my forehead. "Fine. Remember after your accident and our little altercation in front of the Chinese restaurant?"

"Yes, I remember it very well."

"What did you say I had…? 'A whacked sense of honor'?"

"Wait! So, I'm a damsel in distress to you?"

"No…" he sighed. "You're quite capable of taking care of yourself, and Emma, and Paul, and Dee and me all by yourself."

"Well," I ran my hand up over his collar bone to his cheek. "I'm glad I have you now. It's not so lonely."

"I'm glad to be of service."

"Can I ask you something else?"

"Shoot."

"Does this..?" I pointed to us. "Does this make you happy?"

He tightened his hold on me and sighed dramatically. "Do I have to prove it again?"

"No…" I pressed a hand to his chest to stop him from moving much more, I was really quite comfortable. "I just know how much you worry about control and…" I trailed off.

He didn't say much at first. "It does worry me," he admitted finally. "With the nightmares and all…but," he tilted my chin up so I had no choice but to look up at him. "I'm in if you are."

I grinned. "I'm in…." I replied with a yawn as I sealed both of our fates for good.

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**_The next chapter is going to be vera vera intresting!_**

**_Peace out guys!!!! and remember R AND R does not stand for rest and relaxation!_**


	12. The Fight

_Hi guys! I come bearing a new chapter and i'm sorry it took so long. i had some serious writer's block about it and I kept moving stuff around and re-working it because it's an important chapter for the rest of the story._

_DIsclaimer: I own nothing._

_ oh and I've included a kind of important note at the end of the chapter, please read it!!_

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Chapter 12: The Fight.

_**"Your chances of getting hit by lightning go up if you stand under a tree, shake your fist at the sky, and say 'Storms suck!'"~ Johnny Carson.**_

Time, I discovered in the month and a half after Emma left, was a funny thing. Sometimes, especially when I had a long day in which nothing went right, time couldn't move fast enough, and others when I was with Logan, time always was on fast forward.

But Sunday mornings were the best. We neither of us had anywhere to go or a real reason to get out of bed and some Sundays we didn't. We'd slip out to make coffee, read the paper and go through the mail, which I always put off until the last minute. I never found bills particularly fun to deal with.

One Sunday about two months after Emma left, Logan and I decided to spend what was possibly the last nice Sunday outside before it snowed. Logan was reading the paper and had pulled my legs into his lap, while I sorted the mail into three piles: stuff for Emma, junk and bills. I'd just thrown the water bill into its pile when the throbbing, which I'd been ignoring for the past two day, suddenly spiked and made my knee jerk. I bit back a swear and hissed instead. Logan glanced over at me, curious

"Weather's gonna change…." I snarled through my clenched teeth.

"Again?" He asked incredulously, getting up to get my medicine.

"Sorry, Babe!" I called as I picked up a small blue envelope with my name written in scrawling silver script. I closed my eyes briefly before I tossed it into the trash pile. That, too, was something that I didn't want to deal with.

"What's that?" Logan grabbed it before I could stop him.

"Nothing." I took the bottle, pried the lid off and threw down three pills.

He frowned as he read it. "It's from a Serena Taylor…?" He held it out to me.

"I don't want to read it. It goes in the trash pile." I insisted as I took a long sip of coffee to wash down the medicine.

"Who is it?"

I set down the cup and glared. "If you must know, Serena Tyler is my grandmother. My mother's mother."

Logan sat down and pulled my legs into his lap again, running his fingers up and down my bad calf. "You have different last names." He commented lightly.

"I took my dad's name and my mom married Christopher and took the last name: Frost."

"You're not going to read it, then?" He held it out.

"Nope. Trash pile." I indicated the place on the table.

"Aren't you curious?"

I sighed and rubbed my eyes in frustration. "I really don't want to hear what she has to say. She spent the past twenty years ignoring us, she didn't want anything to do with me or my mother until my mother died," I swallowed the old hurts. "There is nothing that woman can say that will make it right."

"You'll never know until you read it." Logan offered.

I narrowed my eyes at him. "Since when are you so forgiving?"

"All I'm saying," he patted my knee. "Is that this woman is your family. The ball's in your court."

I started at the letter in his hand for a moment.

"So, will you read it?" Logan smiled.

I took the letter and turned it over a few times. "Babe, I can't…." I set it down on the table. "Not right now at least….maybe one day." I promised.

Logan frowned. "I understand." And then he placed it in the trash pile.

"Thank you." I leaned over and kissed him once then pressed my forehead against his. "I'm glad you understand, and that you're here. I like having you in my world, too." I assured him. "It makes things…interesting."

"Interesting?" He traced my jaw line and brushed his thumb over my lower lip. "Is that the word you really want to use?"

"Shut up." I kissed him again.

Moments like that made me wish I had the courage to tell him the truth, but I didn't. I liked this too much. And I hated that this didn't feel like living a lie. I wish everything flowed too well, it all fit. And I wasn't about to stop it or think too hard about it because it would only drive me crazy. It felt good to wake up with someone, to look forward to someone coming home, to laugh again. I shouldn't have wanted this as much as I did, he deserved better. He deserved someone who didn't have an axe hanging over her head. And it was everything I couldn't give him.

He pulled back first, gave me a smile and ran a hand over my hair and went back to the paper. But he kept twisting a few strands between his fingers. I could feel the tears starting in my eyes but I brushed them away and shivered as the sun disappeared behind the growing cloud blanket.

"You okay there, Weather Meter?" He wondered.

"Yeah…I think it's going to snow, though." I replied, burying my dangerous thoughts behind a veneer of a smile.

He looked up confused as I gathered the mail and newspapers up. "Are you sure?"

"Baby?" I began. "Who won our little bet last year?"

"You." He pointed.

"And who's once broken leg has been hurting for two days straight?"

"Yours." He sighed and grabbed the coffee cups and followed me inside.

Once, we washed them out and finished sorting through the mail, we glanced outside and sure enough a few little flakes were trailing down the window. Logan glimpsed down at me. "How do you do it?"

"I told you." I poked him in the arm and chest a few times. "I'm psychic."

When he got sick of me jabbing at him, Logan grabbed my hands and pulled me close. "So, you're a psychic…" he kissed my neck once. "And a school teacher…" and again. "And a sister…" And another. "And a human weather radar?"

"You are a lucky lucky man," I murmured and I leaned back into the kitchen counter.

"That, I know." He pressed against me, his fingertips rested on the elastic band of my sweatpants "So, what now, Smarty Pants?"

"I think we should go back to bed."

"Sounds like a good idea."

* * *

"So?" Emma asked when I called her a week later. I'd be leaving early the next morning to see her for Parent's Weekend and then stay for the week after for a teacher's convention. "Is he living there now?"

"No, Em." I laughed as I popped a dumpling into my mouth. "He's not."

"He's not what?" Logan asked as he came into the kitchen. "Who is that?"

"It's Emma. Say hi!" I held out the receiver toward him.

"Hi Emma!" he called.

I could have heard her from five miles away: "HI LOGAN!"

Logan laughed and shook his head. "She's crazy," he commented.

"Yes, " I sighed. "She is both the meaning and bane of my existence."

"Hey! I heard that!" Emma growled.

"Yeah, and?" I asked her.

She sighed. "You sound happy."

I frowned a little. "I _am_ happy, hon."

"I'm glad…. I am." She was trying awfully hard to convince me, so much so, I wondered if she was trying to convince herself.

"What about you? Are you happy?"

" 'Course I am. I get to spend my days taking people's pictures and painting. What more could you ask for?"

"You meet anybody cute? You haven't mentioned anything in that department lately." I wondered.

Logan glared at me. "Don't ask her that!"

"Why not?"

"Why not what?" Emma asked.

"Because I'm in the room!" he complained.

"Oh be quiet."

"Me?" Emma wondered.

"No!"

"Who?" Emma and Logan chorused.

"Emma, I will see you tomorrow, okay? And we can talk about this when you pick me up from the airport? When Logan isn't around…" I glared at him as I asked that. He only shrugged.

"Ah, he's not used to girl talk, is he?"

"Nope."

"Fine. I'll see you tomorrow at three?"

"Yep. See you soon! Love you."

"Love you to! Say bye to Logan for me!"

"I will. Bye."

"Bye."

I hung up the phone and sat back on my hands as Logan came to stand in front of me, a box of lo mein noodles in his hand. "So, how's Em?"

"She's good. She says bye, by the way." I glanced at the lo mein box but didn't steal any the way I normally did. Suddenly, I wasn't very hungry.

"You look upset," he noted, setting down the box.

"It's nothing." I didn't look at him.

He flicked me in the knee. "Liar."

I hated when he did that. "…before she got on the train, Emma asked me not to forget her." I shrugged. "She's about worried how everything is changing."

"So, she's jealous of me?"

"It's nothing to be proud of." I insisted, crossing my arms over my chest. "It isn't. God," I ran my fingers through my hair. "Emma should know that nothing could come between us. I even kept her from our grandmother."

Logan stepped back. "You did what?"

"After Mom died, our grandmother came to funeral," I admitted. "And I was furious. She came and did her duty, paid her respects. But afterward she offered to take Emma off my hands. She'd put her in all the right schools, give her everything that I couldn't, the life my mother could have had." I spat the last bit out with the sour taste of contempt.

"What did you say?"

"I told her that she'd go to hell before she got her hands on my sister. I told her to go away and stay away. That we didn't want anything from her."

"Wait, so you never told Emma about the offer?" Logan's hand encircled my wrist, as if he were taking my pulse.

"No," I shook my head. "I never told her. I couldn't. She was so young and sad and she needed stability."

"She doesn't know? Even now?" Logan asked as I jumped down from the counter.

"How many languages can you understand 'no' in?" I wondered, getting a little frustrated.

"Don't you think she deserves to know?"

"She is _my_ responsibility," I pointed at myself. "I decide what she needs to know and what isn't important."

He was incredulous now. "You never let her choose for herself?!"

"She's too young to make that kind of decision!"

He ran his hand over his eyes. "For God's Sake, Kayla! She's not ten anymore! She's all grown up! You can't protect her forever!"

I swallowed hard, hoping that he would remember this. "She is all I have left! And I will do whatever it takes to make sure she's safe! What else could I do?!"

"Deal with it," Logan backed away a little. "She's not a little girl anymore." He reasoned. "She doesn't need you the same way…."

I stared at him for a moment before I retorted: "Don't lecture me on how to take care of my sister when you can't even deal with your brother!"

"Don't bring Victor into this," he threatened, eyes hardening. "You have no idea what it was like!"

"I guess not, since I'm not the one having nightmares every night about it!" I was sorry the moment the words left my mouth. It was a low blow and I knew it as soon as I saw his face fall.

Logan held out his hands in surrender. "You know what?" he grabbed his keys from the counter. "I'm going to go. Before I say something I regret."

I nodded and bit my lip. "Yeah, maybe it's best."

"Do you need me to drive you to the airport tomorrow?" he asked, not looking at me.

"No, Dee said she'd drive me."

"I'll see you in a week, then." He turned and left without another word.

* * *

"Have you talked to him since the kitchen debacle?" Emma asked the next afternoon. As soon as I'd landed, she knew something was up. And on the way over to her dorm, I found myself spilling the fact that Logan and I had our first fight. She didn't say another word until she led me in to the nearest coffee shop and set me down for a huge cup (really, vat) of coffee.

"I called and told him I'd gotten here okay. We didn't say much more." I sighed and leaned my chin on my hand.

"What did you guys fight about?"

I waved it off. "Nothing important."

Emma nodded wisely. "Yeah, well, it was about time for your first fight. And most of those tend to be over stupid things."

"So, what do I do now?"

Emma shook her head. "I don't know. I think that's something you need to figure out for yourself," She bit her lip, as if she wanted to say something else.

"What?" I asked her. "What's wrong?"

"He didn't…"

"Didn't what?"

She looked down at her hands, almost afraid to speak anymore, but she kept going. "…hit you or…anything? I mean I know you would-"

"Emma," I placed my hand over hers. "I know how it can seem to everyone else, but Logan would never ever lay a hand on me. Never."

Emma's blue eyes locked on mine."You're sure?"

"Very." I grinned.

"Well, do you love him?" Emma came back to the question she'd asked five months ago. "Come on, you have to have an inkling by now."

"…I might…" I admitted.

"We can do a little test," Emma took a sip of her coffee. "To tell for sure."

"It's that foolproof?"

Emma glared at me. "Will you just trust me?"

"Fine. Go ahead."

"Okay…" Emma cleared her throat. "Do you look forward to seeing him?'

"Yes." I nodded, thinking of how impatient I was for work to be over so I could see Logan.

"Do you enjoy spending time with him?"

I smiled thinking of how the house had filled up with laughter since he'd come into my life. "Very much."

"When you're upset, who do you turn to?"

"Logan." I replied quietly.

"When do you feel most like yourself?"

I pressed my hand to my forehead. "With Logan." It was true. When I was with Logan, everything else just faded away and I never felt like I had to worry about what my hair looked like or what I was wearing. He never cared about silly things like that.

"Would you do anything to make him happy?"

That was a tough one, all I ever wanted to see was him smiling, laughing. I always wished I could wipe the nightmares out of his head, but I couldn't. I could only be there to tell him that everything was all right. And at the same time….Stryker… "…yeah, I would…." I replied resolutely.

Emma held out her hands. "I don't know what to say…"

"What do you mean?"

"Face it, hon, you're in love with him." Emma leaned her chin on her hands, a knowing smile on her face. "Or at least that's the way it's headed."

I shook my head. "It's…."

"Don't argue with me, Makayla Rose!" Emma snapped. "Don't you know how lucky you are?!"

"In case you hadn't realized," I retorted. "He hasn't said that he loved me."

"Please! Like he doesn't know that now!"

"And how would you know?"

Emma rolled her eyes. "Because you're blind. That's why."

* * *

The conversation I had with Emma on Saturday haunted me all week. I kept replaying it during all the seminars and lectures. Every night, I tossed and turned, thinking about Emma's words and missing someone so much, I felt like I was going to fall apart at any second. I was never supposed to form a bond of any with him, I was supposed to fall in love with him. And yet, here I was doing just that. And there wasn't anything I could do now. The damage was done.

On Thursday, I came home from a lecture on bullying and saw that I had a message. I picked up the phone and checked, there was only silence recorded and I knew instantly who it was.

I set out at eight, the streets already beginning to darken and the streetlamps turning on. The sight once filled me with wonder, re-living the memories of strolling down these very streets with my mother and sister in a time when we were happy. But now, all I saw was the darkness, the threat of what lurked in the shadows; a man called Stryker.

Just as I predicted, he was waiting for me at the base of the CN Tower. "Kayla," He greeted me with a genuine smile. "My goodness, you get prettier every year." He told me like a benevolent grandfather.

"Thank you," I murmured. I kept my tone flat, cold even but he didn't seem to notice.

"So, how are you?" How is everything?"

"Fine, just fine."

"Good to hear. And how is Logan?"

"Fine."

"Told you the whole story?" he chuckled as if it were some hilarious joke. "Everything?"

I nodded. "He did. And I understand why he left."

"Do you, now?" Stryker sounded intrigued.

"You disgust me," I hissed. "You say that _we_ are the dregs of humanity, that what _we_ have are curses…" I thought for a second. "And yet, here _you_ are blackmailing and murdering to get what you want….How is that any better?"

"Oh Kayla," Stryker laughed aloud, the tone sending shivers down my spine. "You're just like Logan. An idealist!"

"Why's that?"

He stopped when we were in the shadow of the tower. "You don't see the big picture, do you?"

"If you're the one putting it together," I whispered. "I don't think I want to."

"Fair enough," he held out his hands the way Logan had done less than a week ago. "But know this: your time is coming. One day, I'll come to visit your little town and you won't have to see me anymore." He walked away, leaving me alone in the shadows of the tower.

* * *

The airport was crowded that morning and I couldn't see Dee anywhere. I stood up on my tiptoes a few times as I walked slowly to baggage claim. I hadn't slept well since…well, the night before the fight with Logan. Between Emma's proclamation that I was in love with him, and Stryker's unsettling promise that time was slipping away, all I wanted to do was say I was sorry to Logan and make things right. It was all I could do.

As I approached the carousel, I realized I still hadn't seen Dee. I checked my watch for the fifteenth time. My flight had been right on schedule; no delays or unforeseen weather complications…so, where the hell was she?

And, as I scanned the baggage claim again, I saw a face that stuck out from the rest and I ran toward him.

Logan didn't hesitate and opened his arms to me as I crashed into him. He didn't say anything at first and neither did I. I buried my face in his shirt, memorizing the smell, the way his arms wrapped around my waist. For a brief moment, it felt like nothing and no one could touch us.

"I'm sorry…" We both whispered at the same moment. He set me down to look at me but kept a hand on mine.

"No!" We chorused. "I shouldn't have-" We broke off again before any real words could be said. This time, though, he placed his other hand over my mouth.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have yelled," Logan murmured to me, the guilt as plain on his face as it was on mine. "I shouldn't have said those things about Emma, about you…"

I pulled his hand down and placed it on my waist. "I'm sorry too. It was mean and cruel and I should have never brought it up…"

He smiled and so did I. We'd survived our first fight. And it was the first of many. But we never let it go for a week like we had the first time. Every moment together was too precious because it was another moment closer to losing each other. A moment closer to when fate would wake up and there was nothing I could do now to stop it.

* * *

_okay, so. Albion North brought up a good point in his/iher last review. He/She was worried about the semi-casual sex scene i included and how I would handle it. Thankfully, he/she thought I thought i handled it well and I'm very glad. I want you to know that I have not and will not ever write an explicit sex scene. I needed to add some sexual content because a.) it was in the movie (well implied but whatever) and b.) it was set in the seventies and that's what people did and i need to stay true to that_

_I'm going to get up on my soapbox, so if you don't want to hear my opinion, go ahead and review and skip the rest of the note._

_Okay, so. I personally believe that young people are having sex WWAAAYYY too young and if you want my advice: wait. Don't do something you'll regret later. Wait and make sure its something you really want to do and be responsible about it._

_I'm off my soapbox now! Happy reviewing!!_


	13. The Second Summer

**_I'm glad everyone responded so well to the last chapter, so i come bearing the next!!!_**

**_Disclaimer: I own nothing at all. _**

* * *

Chapter 13: The Second Summer

"_**Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.**__**" **__**John Lennon**_

The rest of the year passed without any major incidents. As it all ways had, fall brought with it a few nasty snow storms before winter officially set in. And with the snow, came Emma. As she did the previous year, she spent Christmas and New years with us. But things had changed subtly as Emma and I knew it would.

When she got up in the morning, she would always poke her head out first, look both ways as if checking to see if the way was clear. She said she wanted to be sure she wouldn't find Logan walking around. I told her that Logan I agreed not to while Emma was home. But Emma kept trying to catch us.

On Boxing Day, after she got a mysterious phone call, Emma was strangely giddy. And Emma was never giddy. When we asked her what was up, she refused to say anything. But I had to know so badly, I pulled her into the closet and demanded to know what it was.

"I met someone," she trilled, doing a little happy dance.

"You did?" We both sank against the wall, and slid down to the ground to sit on the floor in the dark.

Emma giggled in a most un-Emma like way. "His name is Jamie…Jamie Madrox and he's so cute!"  
"How'd you meet him?"

"When I went to play pool with some of the girls. And there he was. He's so sweet and adorable and …"

I poked her in the knee. "So, do I get to meet him?"

Emma blushed. "If we last the next semester, maybe during the summer?"

I smacked her in the arm before she had a chance to shield herself. "That is not fair!"

"What's not fair?" She rubbed her arm. "Ouch! Jeez, I forgot how much that hurt!"

"Wimp! I have to wait a whole freaking' semester before I meet your guy and you and Dee got to see the whole Logan and me thing."

"I did not see it _all_! I was at school!"

"You were here for the important stuff."

"That is not my fault!"

"Is so!"

"Is not!"

"So!  
"Not!"

Suddenly the door opened and Logan appeared. He glanced at us, one eyebrow raised. "Should I be concerned?"

"Nope." Emma grinned. "We're fine. Thanks for asking."

"You're in a closet, Half-Pint." He replied using the nick-name he started calling her.

"Yeah," Emma looked at me for a second before looking back at Logan. "We know."

He opened his mouth to say something, and then closed it. He cocked his head to one side and finally said: "I feel like I should ask more questions," he tapped his chin in thought. "But I don't think I'll ever understand. You coming out soon?"

I laughed. "Sorry, babe. We'll be out in a sec. We're just having a tiny girl moment."

He started to leave and then grabbed a hold of the door again. "Should I close the door?" He asked.

"Please."

He shut it, leaving us in darkness again and we cracked up and laughed for a good ten minutes.

When I recovered enough, I asked the most important question: "Have you told him?"

"About my….special abilities?" She murmured.

"Yeah."

She hugged her knees to her chest and looked down at her feet. "I thought Mom said we weren't supposed to tell anyone…"

I shrugged. "Well, Mom's gone. And it's your life. It's a decision that you should make yourself."

"Really?"

"Yes, really. All I ask is that you be sure that he's the one you want to tell."

Emma considered this and sighed. "Have you told Logan?" She swallowed when she saw my face. "Are you ever going to tell?"

"Honey, my gift and yours are very different." I smoothed her long blonde hair away from her face. " I don't want him to think he feels the way he does because of what I can do."

"Have you used it? On him?"

I thought back for a moment. "…only once. To make him listen." I realized. I couldn't believe I hadn't used it more. "But he wouldn't believe me. I think it would be best if he didn't know."

"If you're sure?"

I nodded. "Yeah. I am. It's for the best."

New Years Eve came and went, and so did Emma. I could hardly believe that she was half way through her second year of college and loved it. She had a group of friends she called often, a major she loved, and a potential boyfriend. Like she'd blubbered when I sent her off for fall semester, our life was never going to be the way it was.

Through the rest of the winter and spring, Emma kept me up to date on the goings on with this mysterious Jaime and her frustration at building up her collection to maybe go into a showcase next year. And just as quickly as fall turned to winter, winter turned into spring. Before I knew it, it was nearly summer again.

About a week before Emma came home, Logan and I were lying on the couch one night; he was watching the news, his arm around me and my head on his shoulder. Somehow, we squished onto the couch and we fit there. I had no idea how, but I loved falling asleep listening to his heart beat against my ear.

I was half asleep when Logan suddenly whispered my name: "Kay? You asleep?"

"Almost." I murmured. "What time is it?"

There was a pause when he checked his watch. "Ten thirty."

"I'm such a grandma…" I sighed, closing my eyes again.

He didn't say anything, only ran his hand up and down my arm. But I could feel the tension in his hand, his arm.

"What is it?" I sat up a little to look at him. "You're awfully quiet."

"I was just thinking that this is the first time I've lived in a place for more than six months." He whispered.

"Really?" I counted on my fingers. "Huh, you have been here almost two years, haven't you?"

"It's a little weird, isn't it?" He laughed, his voice rumbling in his chest.

"No," I whispered, tightening my hold on him. "No. It isn't weird at all."

"So, you like having me around, then?" he grinned.

"Very much. Is there something else?" I murmured.

"I've been thinking…"

"Oh no…." I snickered.

"Quiet you…As I was saying, before I was so rudely interrupted, I've been thinking a lot about this."

I leaned on my chin on my hand to look him in the face. "What is the 'this' you've been thinking about?"

"The 'this' would be us, actually."

"Oh, really?"

"Yeah," he moved his hand up to my hair and started to run his fingers through my hair. "This is nice."

I grinned. "I got that."

"No, I mean…" he let out a deep breath. "I like having you around."

"Wow!" I laughed, burying my face in his shoulder for a minute. "You're smothering me…."

"Will you shut up for five minutes?" he groaned. "I'm trying to make a point."

"Fine, go ahead."

"My point is, when I first came here, I didn't think I could live a civilian life. I didn't think I could do the whole 9-to-5 job-" he glared at me when I almost interrupted with the whole 8-to-3 fact but I stopped. "And then I met you and everything changed."

"Me?"

"Yes, you." He grinned.

"What did I do?" I sat up all the way and so did he.

"After your accident, and we were eating Chinese and you told me that people didn't come to Canmore because of the view or the skiing. That people come because they're looking for something. I asked what it was and you said it was whatever it is they need to find-"

"You think I'm what you needed to find…?" I whispered.

"Yeah, actually."

I stared at him.

"What I'm working up to is…" he looked down at his hands and then back up at me. "Kayla, I love you."

It wasn't that I hadn't been expecting this; I did know this was coming. I'd known it was coming since that first summer but I refused to admit it. Looking up at him, the hope in his eyes, the slight tremor in his hands, I felt the tears starting in my eyes. "Why?" I whispered. "Of all the people in the world, why would you pick me?"

He grinned and reached forward to wipe away a few tears. "Because…" he shook his head in disbelief at me. "Because I hate being away from you for any amount of time, because you make me laugh, because I can….be myself, good and bad, with you." He smiled a real full smile at the last bit. "What's wrong?"

I smiled too, despite myself and brushed away the tears. "It's nothing. No one's ever said that to me."

"So, it was good then?"

"Very good." I wrapped my arms around him.

"Do you have something to say to me?" he wondered.

"I…" I bit my lip and thought.

"You don't have to," he sounded dejected.

"Logan, please…" I murmured, gathering my thoughts. "I've never felt about anyone, the way I feel about you. And, I don't imagine that I will ever feel this about anyone else in the future…"

"Wow…" he snorted. "You're smothering me!"

I giggled. "What I'm trying to say is that…I love you, too."

"Now," Logan grinned, slipping his hand behind my head. "Was that so hard?"

"You know," I leaned over him and kissed him once. "Sarcasm isn't becoming."

"Like you don't love it." He murmured and pulled me down for another kiss.

It was a good summer, one of the best Emma and I could remember. We went hiking, showing Logan all of our favorite spots on the mountain, and went to the lake a few times with Paul and Dee. Most nights we sat outside and watched the sun go down.

Sundays, we all slept in late and then bummed around the house. I read while Logan taught Emma how to fix the car or had her help him fix up the car or bike. Half the time, Emma would emerge from the garage covered in grease and oil but smiling from ear to ear. Logan would smile at her and call her "Half-Pint" instead by her name.

Emma, of course, took tons of pictures; Logan and I were her favorite subjects. She was always there, camera in hand. There were so many that I tried to throw away, but Emma never let me touch those. Most of them were of me in the morning before I'd had coffee, a shot of Dee in her bunny slippers and the like. But there were a few though, that I loved: one of Logan and I sitting on the back porch looking back at Em, me kissing Logan's cheek, one of just us laughing at something, and Logan's profile, one so very different from the one Stryker showed me more than a year before.

There was one afternoon that stuck out to me; we'd hiked up to Grassi Lake and Emma was busy snapping pictures but pushed her luck when she stood in front of us and took a shot of us at every single angle. Finally, Logan grabbed her, wrestled he camera out of her hands and handed it to me. He threw her over his shoulder and marched off toward the lake.

I set it down and stupidly followed. Once we got to the lake's edge, he tossed Emma in. Then he turned around for me. I shouldn't have tried to run away, I knew he would catch me, but I did anyway. He caught me easily and tossed me in as well.

That night, after Emma and I had dried off, we cooked out and between Dee, Emma and I polished off the bag of marshmallows for s'mores.

"You know," Emma wondered as she roasted her ninth marshmallow.

"What?" Dee asked.

"I like this."

Dee laughed and placed her hand on Emma's head. "Yeah, it is nice, isn't it?"

Later, as we were falling asleep under the stars, I curled up next to Logan and whispered: "You know what?"

He chuckled. "What, Kayla?" he asked sleepily.

"Today was a good day. One of the best."

"It was good." He agreed. "But, there'll be more."

"Promise?"

"I promise. Now, go to sleep."

Like all things, that perfect summer came to an end. As the days ticked closer to August, Emma got a call from Jaime and she told us that he was going to give her a ride to school, seeing as how he lived in Vancouver and she was right on the way.

"What do you know about this kid?" Logan snarled on the day that Jaime was supposed to come pick Emma up.

"His name is Jamie," I smiled. "And Emma likes him very much. He's a poli-sci major, I think she said. He's very smart."

"That's it?" Logan started pacing. "What does he do? Who-"

"Baby," I caught him and pressed a finger to his lips. "We'll know soon enough."

"How are you not worried?" he was shocked.

I sighed. "You were right. Emma's not ten anymore. She's not a little girl and she has to grow up some time. I'm trying to trust her."

"So, you actually listened to me?" Logan threw up his hands in amazement. "What do I know?"

"Logan." I grinned and placed one hand on his arm. "I need you today. I need you to be calm. Because we can't both freak out right now."

"Fine, fine…I'm calm. It's your turn." He smiled.

"Well, I was thinking of doing something else." I shot him a sidelong glance. "A kiss for luck?"

"You don't have to ask me twice." He obliged until Emma came in.

"Must you in my presence?" Emma snorted. "See, I know you guys are super excited that I'm going back to school, but can't you wait until I'm actually out of the house?" She whined.

"Where's your ride, Half-Pint?" Logan laughed, keeping his hands around my waist. "You were supposed to be out of the house," he glanced at his watch. "half an hour ago."

"Shut it!" Emma shouted back as she grabbed another bag from her room. "And if you're so keen to get me out then grab a bag!"

Logan sighed and rolled his eyes but went to help anyway. "Jesus, Half-Pint!" He exclaimed. "You know you're going to be back, right?"

"Grab a bag, please!"Emma repeated. "You, too, Sister dear!"

I laughed and followed suit.

As we were putting the last few bags on the porch, an old green pick-up pulled into the driveway. Emma squealed and raced down to greet him.

"Think that's him?" Logan wondered.

I nodded, swallowing back the tension as Jamie got out of the cab and hugged Em. "I feel like I'm in one of those dreams and I know I'm in a dream. Kind of floaty…"

"Like your head isn't connected to your neck?" He wondered.

"Yeah."

"Kayla!" Emma dragged the poor boy up the porch steps. "Kayla, this is Jamie Madrox." She presented him like Vanna White would a vowel. "Jaime, this is my sister Kayla, Kayla Silverfox."

The tall lanky boy stepped forward, flicking his dark mahogany hair out of his eyes. A smile slid up and settled crookedly on his mouth. He had a well defined jaw and I could see what Emma did. He was gorgeous. Almost too gorgeous. "I'm so glad to meet you," I said finally. "Emma's told me all about you."

"It's nice to finally meet you, too." he grinned. "Emmy's told me all about you, too."

I stopped short when he called her 'Emmy'. Nobody had ever called her 'Emmy'. He was perfectly polite as he shook Logan's hand too, but there was something about him…something that I couldn't put my finger on.

When all the introductions had been made and all of Emma's bags loaded, Emma and I said goodbye on the porch. "Study hard, be safe." I whispered. "Call me all the time."

Emma grinned. "I will. I'll be fine. Don't worry about me."

"But." I cupped her face in my hands. "You are my Emma. And I love you. Always have."

Emma smiled. "Always will." She agreed. Logan appeared next to her and then scooped her up over his shoulder. Emma laughed and I memorized the sound. He set her down next to the cab and they exchanged a few words before they hugged as well.

Logan was back at my side on the porch as we watched, in silence, the pick-up truck back out of the driveway. All the while Emma and Jamie waved. I felt, rather than saw Logan turn to me. "It's going to be all right," he told me as he wrapped an arm around me. "Everything is going to be okay."

I looked up at him, smiled thinly and sighed. "I hope so."

* * *

**_You guys better enjoy this while it lasts cuz you will not believe what's gonna happen in the next chapter!!!!!!!!!!!!!!_**


	14. The Fight, part 2

**_Hey!_**

**_I don't have much to say about this chapter....yeah...nothing...Happy Reading!!_**

**_Disclaimer: I own nothing!_**

* * *

Chapter 14: The Fight, part 2

**_"__There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.__"__Friedrich Nietzsche_**

Change had always been something that Emma feared, and I could now understand why. Some days, it seemed that Emma had become a stranger to me and to our way of life. She forgot our shared past, and even sometimes the love that saved us both.

We fought about everything and almost every time we spoke. The last peaceful conversation we'd had was when Emma called to say that she and Jamie had gotten to the University safely.

"You look cheery," Logan noticed when I hung up the phone late one October night, my latest conversation with Emma a total disaster which was quickly becoming the norm.

"Oh, the cheeriest," I retorted and glared at the phone.

"Another fight?" he guessed.

"Yep." I pulled myself up on the counter.

"Well, you can work it out when you go visit for Parent's Weekend," he reasoned walking all the way into the kitchen.

"That's the thing," I crossed my arms across my chest. "She doesn't want me to come this year."

"What do you mean? You've gone the past two years; who else would go?" He was mystified.

I glanced up at the painting Emma had done of our mother. It seemed like another lifetime ago. "As Em, so lovingly, pointed out, I am not a parent."

"Well," he stepped in front of me, placing his hands on my knees. "She has a point."

"Logan! I swear!" I half-heartedly smacked him in the arm. I knew he was just trying to lighten my gloomy mood. "It's not funny!"

"No," he chuckled. "No, it isn't…." he traced the line of my jaw but even that wasn't enough to distract me.

"I don't know what do to," I shrugged. "I mean, all we do is fight. About everything, we can't get through one phone call without a fight. About her changing her major, her boyfriend, and her plans for after graduation."

"Do you want me to talk to her?" He offered. "I mean, I'm not as good at it as you are but-"

I smiled and pressed a hand to his chest. "No. This is an Emma and me thing. She and I need to work it out….I'm just whining."

"Is there something else I can do?"

I grinned, looping my fingers through his belt loops and pulling him closer. "Kiss me, please." I whispered. "It makes all the bad things just… go away."

"It does all that?" he wondered, his arms creeping around me.

"And more," I assured him right before he kissed me one of those kisses that made me forget why I was upset, where I was and who the hell I was. I pulled back when the kiss became more intense than I meant.

"Is there anything else?" He wondered.

I cocked my head to one side. "You could take your shirt off…"

"And what would that solve?"

I shrugged. "I'm not sure but you're awful nice to look at."

"Ah," he laughed as he reached forward and scooped me up in his arms. "So, the real reason you're with me has finally come out."

I rolled my eyes as I wrapped my arms around his neck. "Like you didn't already know that…"

"Well, we should have it all out in the open," he told me as we walked into the living room. "Which is why I should tell you that I'm only here because I'm shallow and all I care about is looks," He grinned and I couldn't help pulling him down to me for another kiss. A part of me felt guilty for fighting with Emma one minute and losing myself in kissing Logan the next. But the only time I felt like I was completely whole was when I was with him and I wasn't about to sacrifice that yet.

* * *

"I'm going to take some time off," Emma announced a few weeks later on the phone.

I laughed. "What are you going on about? You're in your third year; you've only got a year to go."

"No, I'm taking next semester off," Emma insisted. "I don't know if art is what I really want to do. It's not very practical and-"

"What? Political Science is? Emma, you can't sit still for more than five minutes!

"I'm not talking about Political Science…. I don't know what I want!" She retorted.

"Yes, you do." I replied. "You've known since you were five."

"People change, Kayla, they do it all the time."  
"What's this all about? Where is this coming from?"

"It's coming from me. I want some time-"

"What are you going to do for money?" I cut her off.

"I have a part time job," she said.

"That isn't enough. Emma… Honey, you can tell me," I grasped the phone. "What's going on?"  
There was a pause and my heart dropped.

"I met our grandmother," she whispered. "She said she's been writing for a long time. I never saw any letters."

"No," I heaved a deep breath. "No, you haven't. I threw them away."

"But…"

"Emma, she was going to take you away from me." I blurted out. "I'm sorry, I never told you but I couldn't let you go with that woman!"

"But she's my grandmother-"

"She's mine too and where was she during our childhood? Sitting in that huge house in Quebec, hating Mom and me."

"She's offered to help me out." Emma went on as if she hadn't heard me. "And Jamie thinks-"

"I don't care what Jamie thinks!"

"Well, I do!" Emma yelled. "I love him and he loves me!"

"Don't do this!" I cautioned. "Don't throw everything away on a guy!"

"You're supposed to support me, Kayla. Be my sister, not my mother!"

"I have to be both! After Mom died, who fed you? Who made sure you went to school? Who slept next to you for three months afterward so you wouldn't have nightmares? Who, Emma? Who? This grandmother who had no interest in you before? Or your sister who loves you more than anything? Who?"

She sighed. "I'm taking the next semester off, I'm going to talk to Grandmother Serena and I'm going to continue to see Jamie."

"I-"I started.

"No. If you can't support me then there isn't anything left for us to say."

The tears began then. "Emma, don't do this…" I gasped. "Please, you're all I have left…"

"What's your answer?" Emma's voice was all steel.

I swallowed and then sniffed. "I can't support this Emma. It's a mistake and you know it. I-"

"Goodbye, then." There was a click and then the dial tone. I looked down at the receiver in my hand before I slowly placed it back on its hook.

The silence was overwhelming for that brief moment while I processed. Emma wasn't going to be calling anymore. She wouldn't be home for Christmas. She…she….

All at once, I heard my mother reminding me to look after Emma, to watch out for her, Stryker's promise the last time I'd seen him and finally Emma's laughter. It echoed like a bell ringing and with each echo it grew louder and louder until I couldn't even hear myself howling with rage and shame and an overwhelming sorrow.

Somehow, I crumpled to my knees on the kitchen floor. The linoleum was cool against my hot cheeks and palms. How had I failed so badly? How had I ruined everything we'd worked for? And why? Why? Why?

Suddenly the sorrow left me. It would be back, and with a vengeance too, I knew but all that was left to me was anger. Pure and animalistic.

I read once about the Indian goddess Kali. She was no beautiful maiden or noble warrior with the bow and arrow of heaven at her side. She was a destroyer; she didn't harbor any maternal instincts or traditionally feminine whims. Kali danced the dance of destruction and when everything in sight was gone, she brought forth something new. In that moment, I was Kali.

I rose up on feet that weren't mine and lashed out with hand that weren't connected. I knocked pots and pans off the counter, the metallic crashes oddly comforting as they hit the ground, the table, each other. Cups and bowls shattered, the glass flying up briefly to catch the sun light before they too joined the mess at my feet. Silverware clattered to the ground as I pulled drawers loose. Cabinets flapped against each other as I tore from one to the next. But I wasn't finished yet.

On the table was a bowl of apples. I grabbed one and hefted it toward the wall. It made a satisfying crunch as it hit. So I threw another and another. Soon the wall was covered in apple guts, already yellowing in the air. The bright russet skins were jagged and in pieces on the floor.

Possessed with inhuman strength, I picked up a dining room chair that we never used and flipped it over my head. I heard one of the legs crack. It filled me with savage pleasure, so I tossed the next and another and another.

I turned to the curtains on the back door. I grabbed them and yanked all the while screaming and crying and letting all that anger and fear and hatred and sorrow bleed out as the material gave way under my fingers. I yanked and pulled until the curtains lay in a heap next to me. It didn't help. In fact, if anything, I needed more chaos, more to destroy and then create into my own image.

I couldn't stop, though. I grabbed the books sitting on the coffee table and hurled them at the wall so hard, they left divots an inch wide. But I didn't care. I threw book after book, hoping that with each throw or crack of a vase, would make me feel better. I hoped against hope that the savage joy at destruction would fill the void forming in my stomach.

But all I had was the beautiful chaos around me, Emma was nowhere in sight.

When there was nothing left to maim or destroy, I sank down in the middle of floor, in the very center of the mess. The sorrow was back, as I knew it would be, so strong that there was nothing to stall the tears I was shedding. It engulfed me, drowning Kali who had possessed me and leaving me shivering on the floor. I had nothing to create out of my chaos.

Time passed, it must have, but I didn't realize until I heard the door open and his familiar footsteps come closer and closer until they stopped when he saw me sitting in the middle of the destroyed living room.

He ran to me, and knelt down, cupping his hands on my face. "What happened, Kayla?" Logan lifted my face to the light, looking for cuts or bruises of some sign that someone had done this to me.

"I'm fine." I rasped. All the screaming and crying had filed my voice down to a harsh whisper. "I wasn't attacked or anything."

"Then, how did…?" he trailed off as he surveyed the damage I'd wrought.

"I did it." I replied as calmly as if I'd painted the living room a new color, with a hint of pride.

"Why?"

I looked Logan in the eye and he noticed my red puffy eyes. "Emma isn't coming home for Christmas. She doesn't want to speak to me anymore…." My lips quivered. I thought I had the strength to get it out but I didn't; the tears I didn't think I had left started anew and my shoulders shook. "I failed!" I sobbed. "I failed…Now…now, she's gone and …." I didn't go on. Without asking or saying anything else at all, his arms came around me. But even they weren't strong enough to keep the grief at bay.

* * *

There was rain pattering on the window in the grey morning light or maybe it was twilight; from the angle on the bed, I couldn't tell and nor could I remember getting to bed or when that might have transpired. But I lay there in my bed, my sheets twisted around me, not sure if I wanted to move or if I could. I reached out to the other side of the bed and felt only cool sheets. Mustering what little energy I had, I sat up, ran a hand through my messy hair and got out of bed.

Once outside my room, I noticed that most of the mess had been cleaned up, the curtains were still in a heap, but the books had been cleaned up and were stacked on the coffee table. The kitchen had been swept and cleared of the glass, but the walls still had marks and the chairs were still in a pile. Though semi-clean, the house was quiet except for Logan talking on the phone in the kitchen and I padded toward him.

"No…no, I finally got her to sleep and she's been asleep for…" he checked his watch. "About ten hours now …" he ran a hand through his hair. "Yeah…yeah….if you want to…I don't know if she's up for company." He turned around to see me, a huge smile lighting up his face. "Dee, Dee. Hold on, she's awake." Logan held his palm over the phone. "Do you want to talk to her?"

I nodded and took the phone. "Hi Dee."

"Honey, how are you?" Dee was frantic. "Do you need me to come over? Logan told me about your little demolition derby, do you need me to help you clean up?"

"No." I sighed. "No, I'm okay…"

"No, you're not." De retorted. "I can hear it in your voice."

"I'm not," I agreed "But I will be…eventually."

"Well, I'm going to make up something and bring it over, okay?"

I grinned a little. "Yeah, okay. I'll see you guys in a little while then."

"I love you, hon. Remember that." Dee replied.

"I love you, too." I handed the phone back to Logan who hung it up. "What time is it?" I asked him.

"It's nine in the morning. On Saturday."

I nodded, glancing around. "How…how did I get back to the bedroom?"

Logan leaned back against the counter. "I carried you. You were pretty out of it, and it took forever to get you to sleep."

" Has she…?" I bit my lip, asking for torture.

Logan shook his head. "Nope. Sorry Baby."

"I thought maybe she..." I swallowed. "Maybe she would have changed her mind."

"Don't." He pleaded, cupping my face in his hands. "Don't do this to yourself."

"But….she's all I have left. What am I supposed to do?"

Logan shrugged. "I don't know." He ran his hands up and down my upper arms as I fell into him. "I don't know."

* * *

I tried to call Emma everyday for a month, but her roommate would answer and say that she didn't want to talk to me. It stung every time even though I knew it was coming. I always made the calls when Logan was out or at work, he hated to watch me torture myself over this. But after the month, I stopped calling. After that, some days it was hard just getting out of bed, I forgot how to laugh, how to be happy. It felt as though my mother had died all over again. But this time, I didn't have Emma.

I had Logan. He may not have been Emma but he seemed to know if it would be a good day or not. He never once complained when I would crawl into his lap or worm my way into his arms simply because I felt like I was falling apart. He would just smile and kiss the scar on my forehead. We got along somehow.

The weeks turned into months, months to seasons, and the seasons stretched into years. As always, life took on a pattern and I learned how to laugh again, how to smile especially six months after Emma called, Dee announced that she and Paul were expecting their first child. Nine months after that, we welcomed Daniel James into the world and he stole another sliver of my heart. No one could ever replace Emma but Danny, as we called him, came pretty damn close.

But there wasn't a day that went by that I didn't think of Emma, wonder how she was or what she was doing. But instead of dwelling on it, I threw myself into work, into Danny, Dee, Logan and the life I was slowly rebuilding. From my Kali destruction, a new order was created out of my despair. But it wouldn't last.

Three years later, the clock began ticking again on a day like any other.

* * *

**_NOT THE FACE!!!...okay, okay, i know you guys totally hate me!!! And i hate to tell you that I have a max of 3-4 chapters left.....and to be completely cheese, i will quote the Joker from "The Dark Knight" (one of the most awsome movies ever! It totally made my list) _**

**_"...And...here...we go!"_**

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	15. The Collection

**_I have some good news and some bad news: _**

**_the good news is, a.) here i come with the next chapter, b.) Most of the other chapters, including the epilogue have been some what written (They're not in the best of shape and need some polishing before I'll let you see them). _**

**_And now the bad news: I go back to University in about oh...3 days. which means i won't have as much time to write. But i will finish this story before my fall semester gets too crazy._**

**_As of right now, I only have three chapters left and they probably won't be as long as this one._**

**_Disclaimer: I own nothing at all!_**

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Chapter 15: The Collection. 

_**"Because I could not stop for death, He kindly stopped for me; The carriage held but just ourselves and immortality."~**__**Emily Dickinson**_

The alarm went off, as it always did, at six thirty. Groaning, I reached out from the blankets to slap it back against the bedside time. I finally shut it off after a good thirty seconds of fiddling with it. I fell back against the pillows, exhausted already.

"How's your arm?" Was Logan's sulky 'good morning'. He took my left wrist in his hand and pulled it up into the sunlight to inspect. The three red scratches across my forearm were long but shallow, already beginning to heal.

"I'm fine." I rolled over onto my elbow. "I told you last night."

He gave me a stony look and kept running his fingers over the skin of my wrist in contemplation. "Technically, it was this morning."

I rolled my eyes at him. "It was an accident no matter what time it was."

He grimaced at me.

"Babe," I slipped my hand against his cheek and pulled him toward me. "It's fine. It just a scratch."

"Three scratches," He corrected.

"Please don't dwell on this." I begged him.

"I-"

I cut him off with a kiss. Just one. "Please? For me?"

"For you." He clarified and kissed the longest scratch on my arm. "Only you."

"Deal," I laid back down, my arm still around him, and let my head sink into my pillow when an idea popped into my head. "Let's play hooky today," I suggested.

"Tomorrow might be better." He insisted as he pulled me closer.

"Why? Why not today? What about the whole seize the day thing?"

"Because tomorrow's Friday, and then we'll have a three day weekend."

I sighed. "Fine." And slid out of bed. "Start the coffee for me, Babe?"

"'Course," he smiled from the bed as his eyes roamed over me.

"What?" I wondered, pulling a brush through my hair.

He shook his head. "Nothing."

I rolled my eyes. "You're such a morning person it makes me sick…"

"And that is why you love me." He laughed as he too, got out of bed.

I smiled to myself as I put the brush down and went into bathroom.

* * *

"How many cups of coffee have you had today?" Dee quizzed me as I poured myself a cup after Logan dropped me off.

I thought back, cocking my head to one side as I flipped through my mail and other papers. "This is three, I think."

Dee put her hands on her hips. "What happened to quitting?"

"That's you. I couldn't give it up without going through withdrawals." I placed my hand on her burgeoning belly. "This one doesn't like caffeine?"

Dee groaned. "No, I got spoiled with Danny. I swear he was born a caffeine addict."

"But he's adorable." I smiled, watching him run around with a few other kids in the school yard before school started. "My favorite almost-nephew."

"This one better be just as good." Dee insisted.

"We can't call it 'this one' forever." I laughed. "When will you know for sure?"

She smiled and rubbed her stomach, her eyes growing as soft as a Madonna's. "We've got an appointment next week to find out."

"Call me the minute you know."

Suddenly Dee had a strange look on her face and a mischievous light in her eyes. It was as if she were plotting something, like she used to look when she was trying to set me up. "What?" I glanced up and down, thinking maybe I'd spilled coffee on myself. "What are you looking at?"

"You want kids, don't you?" Dee smirked.

"I never said that." I took a huge sip of coffee. "Logan and I already talked about it."

"And….?"

"And….It's not for us." I winced, waiting for fireworks.

"Are you serious?" Dee poked me. "Kayla, how long have you been with Logan?"

"Almost five years," I shrugged.

"And you don't think he's what you want?"

I put down my coffee cup and looked out the window at the kids running around. "It's…not that…"

"Well, what is it?" She wondered as she too started to go through her mail.

I shook my head. "I don't know….after my mom and everything she went through, I'd want to be married before I had a kid myself."

"And you don't want to marry Logan?" She pushed.

"Dee…I don't need a piece of paper to tell me what I already know. Besides," I looked down at my hands. "I want to make things right with Emma first."

"But-"

"Dee." I placed my hand and hers and gave a little incentive. "Let it go." Her eyes went blank for a second and then returned to normal.

I returned to the task at hand, trying to shake Dee's talk from my head. Logan and I had talked about it, a few months after Danny was born actually. There wasn't a ring or a proposal or anything, but we agreed that it couldn't work, not with his aging still not slowing down to an appropriate rate and the legal trouble that would, no doubt, ensue when I died, but also Stryker….I couldn't in good conscious go through with it. Besides, I didn't need a piece of paper telling me that I loved him and neither did Logan.

The day passed as normally as it always did until Logan came to pick me up. Maybe it was something in the air, or the fact that I was a little late because Ryan Donald's father didn't pick him up until three thirty, which always threw off my day. But the moment I sat in the car, I knew something was wrong. Logan hardly looked at me and he held the steering wheel with such a tight grip, I saw the veins in his hands starting to pop and the ligaments holding the claws beginning to give way.

"What's wrong?" I asked, almost fearing the answer.

He glanced over, as I shocked him out of his thoughts. "Stryker came to see me today."

The day I had feared for five years now had finally arrived. My stomach plummeted to my feet, my hands began to sweat and I felt as though I'd suddenly come down with a fever. I must have made a face because he added right away. "Don't worry, I said 'no'."

"Why is he bothering you after all these years?" I snarled through my teeth.

"Because I'm the best there is at what I do." He grimaced. "And what I do best isn't nice."

I rolled my eyes as I should. "You're not an animal, Logan. What you have is a gift." God, I hated that man for what he'd done to Logan, feeding him all that crap for years.

"A gift?" Logan shrugged. "A gift you can return." And then he stopped short when we got close to the bridge. Two trucks had stopped side by side. "Come on, fellas…" Logan honked the horn. Instead of moving, one of them flipped us off.

Logan growled and jammed the car into park.

"Baby, stay in the car," I pleaded, putting a hand on his arm. "Please?"

He smiled thinly at me. "I'm just going to ask nicely," and then untangled himself from me.

Jesus, not again. I covered my eyes with y hand as Logan went off to confront the asshole, who stood a good six inches taller than him. They exchanged a few words before the asshole tried to punch Logan, who caught the massive palm in his hand.

I jumped out of the car, after seeing that little gear go off in Logan and ran up to them. "Hey guys, take it easy!" I snarled, placing my hand on the guy's shoulder.

"Your boyfriend has a big mouth," the moron sputtered out.

"Big temper, too." I told him. "Now, please move your truck." I infused the words with a bit of will and sent him on his way.

As we walked back to our car, Logan stared at me. "How did you do that?"

"Powers of persuasion." I retorted with a laugh; it was the truth after all.

"Do they work on me?" he wondered as he opened the door.

"You didn't stay in the car, now did you?" I smirked and got in, Stryker now the last thing on my mind

* * *

I glanced up out the window to see the moon hanging almost right next to it. It reminded me of a story I'd read earlier that day. "Why is the moon lonely?" I asked aloud.

"I don't know. Why?" Logan had become used to this. I didn't do it often, only when I came across a cool story, however, I wasn't the best judge of what was or wasn't cool; I loved reading after all.

"Because she used to have a lover." I bit my lip, wondering what he was thinking.

"Ah," he nodded with a smile of his own as I came to sit on his lap. "Did you tell the kids this one?"

"His name was Kikawatsu and they lived in the Spirit World together." I answered, wrapping my arms around his neck.

"So, it's a true story then?" He wondered.

I ignored him. "Every night, they would wander the skies together. But one of the other spirits was jealous, the Trickster wanted the moon for himself. So, he told Kikawatsu that the Moon had asked for flowers. Told him to come to our world to pick her some wild roses. Kikawatsu didn't know that once you leave the Spirit World, you can never go back…." I searched his eyes, looking for a reaction because I'm sure my face must have given something away. "… And every night, he looks up into the sky and howls her name. But he can never touch her again." I finished sadly, knowing that in some way our story would end in a similar way.

"Wow…" Logan nodded seriously. "Ku ku kacho got screwed!" He laughed.

"Kikawatsu." I corrected, running my hand down his cheek. "It means the Wolverine."

"Wolverine…" he mused. "They're kind of-"

"Mean?" I suggested. "Territorial and downright terrifying."

"I was going for ornery but…sure, fine." He laughed "You're the teacher."

I grinned but inside I wanted to cry and rage like I'd done three years ago, but I couldn't. He'd know and then we'd all be in trouble. I knew this day would come, I knew it before I'd ever met him and I dreaded it even then. That dread wound its way through my veins, weighing me down like lead.

Logan picked up on my melancholy almost instantly. "What is it, Babe?" he breathed against my hair, very close to my ear.

"Nothing," I ran my fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck, wanting time to stop right here, right now. "I just…."

"Emma?" He wondered quietly.

"Yeah…" I lied quickly. "She'll be twenty three this year," I counted sadly on my fingers and leaned back to look him in the eye. "There's so much I missed with her. So much I'm going to miss."

"She'll be back." He predicted as he ran his hand up and down my leg. "Any day now."

"You've been saying that since forever," I pointed out with a grim smile.

"And it can still come true," he replied as he pulled me closer and closer. "Besides-"

I held a finger up to his lips. I didn't want to waste what could be my last night with him talking about Emma. Emma walked away from us, she chose not to call or write or anything. She couldn't be helped now.

True to his word, Stryker had come and time was up.

"I don't want to talk about Emma anymore," I whispered against his mouth. "Actually, I don't want to talk at all anymore."

"Done and done." He grinned as he slid down the straps of my nightgown, kissing the hollow of my throat.

* * *

I only slept for a few hours; I couldn't lay there with all the dread laced through me. But before I got up, I memorized the man who had lain beside me for the past five years. In my heart, I knew that he would not look like this forever. Soon that serenity he'd gained over the last few years would be replaced with the rage he used to let rule his life and he would hate me. I couldn't blame him either.

Logan, as per usual, was sleeping soundly with no flicker of nightmare across his face. His dark hair had gotten long; he'd need a hair cut soon as it fell across his eyes, he hated it when it was that long. He had such long eyelashes for a man, I realized as they fanned against his high cheek bones. He'd pulled the sheet we still hadn't replaced, half up his chest, letting me watch it rise and fall with every breath.

I never understood before why someone watched a loved one sleep until this particular moment. There was something so peaceful about knowing that he was next to me, sleeping and absolutely beautiful in the darkness. But I had things to do before he woke up.

Just as the sun was about to come up, I reluctantly slipped out of bed, knowing exactly what to do. I sat down next to my record player and flipped through the records looking for just the right one. The right one came in the form of the Beatles' "I'll Follow the Sun." I grabbed the lyrics and started to write to Emma on them.

_Dear Emma, _

_If you've gotten this letter, it means that I've died. I'm sorry that I couldn't see you become the woman that you will be. I'm sorry I couldn't see you graduate from University, get married, have my many nieces and nephews, and do whatever it is you're going to do because I know it will be life-altering to see. _

_I want you to know that I never stopped loving you and I never will. No one and nothing will ever change that. I've loved you since the first moment I saw you wrapped up in that pink hospital blanket. Those years with Mom and Christopher and you, living in Toronto were some of the happiest I can remember. Except for that last summer you spent with us. Everything was perfect and I re-live every moment when I miss you so much it's hard to breathe. _

_I wish I had better words to tell you how much I love you and why this has happened, but I don't, which is why I've left you with the Beatles. They always say it best._

_Speaking of leaving; I've left everything to you, including the house, my bank account, and a small trust I've been saving for you since I started working. Use it wisely. _

_Remember; I love you first. Always have. Always will._

_Kayla._

I glanced up from my first finished letter, to see the sun's light starting to stain the mountain. There wasn't much time left. So, I sealed Emma's letter in an envelope, wrote my signature across the back to be sure no one else would ever see its contents and began looking through my records for the next one.

And then, it was staring me in the face. I smiled a little as I slid the lyrics out of the record, remembering everything. Billie Holiday's "It Had to Be You", no question. It was our song.

I picked up my pen and began the hardest letter I'd ever written. Miraculously, I kept the tears at bay as I wrote; my pen flying faster and faster. I finished with just enough time to spare. I got it in the envelope, sealed and in my purse and retreated back to the kitchen to start the coffee maker just as the bedroom door opened.

Logan appeared, shirtless as he always did (much to my delight), eyes narrowed at me. "What the hell are you doing up so early? The alarm just went off…."

I shrugged as the coffeemaker began to gurgle. "I just remembered some stuff I have to do this morning. Bank stuff."

"I thought we were going to play hooky?" He wondered.

"Well, I would but," I sighed. "I really need to get some stuff done. Maybe next week?"

He sighed, leaning against the counter. "And I was looking forward to hooky."

I giggled and slipped my hand into his.

Everything was normal, so much so I wanted to scream. I dropped Logan off at work with a kiss and a whispered: "I love you." I watched him walk away from me, my heart dropping with every step he took. Somehow, I'll never be sure exactly how, I got back in the car, put it back into gear and drove away, each motion harder than the last as the drop off site grew smaller and smaller the father away I got.

The bank had barely opened when I drove up. The only teller on duty was Jody, a girl who was only a few years older than Emma. I handed her the envelopes and told her to put everything with the deed for my house. She complied with a furrowed brow as I left in a hurry to get to school.

I didn't get very far. As soon as I got out of town, I had the odd feeling of being watched. Shivering, I turned up the music as I rounded the nearest curve.

As Frank Sinatra sang on about going over the rainbow, I saw a dark shape standing in the road. I stopped the car and watched as the shadows melted off to reveal Victor Creed in his trademark black trench coat and menacing smile.

He paused at the driver's headlight as his nails suddenly grew six inches. Glancing up at me, he smiled more broadly and dug his fingernails into the hood. The metal gave way with a sickening and gut-wrenching screech.

Victor reached the driver's side door and leaned down to the open window. "Hello again, little Fox." He greeted me with a sneer.

I gripped the steering wheel until my knuckles were white. Slowly, I realized that I'd been shaking my head and muttering: "No…no…no…." under my breath since he'd appeared on the road.

"I'm sorry, little Fox." He frowned just a little. "But the time has come to pay the piper."

I kept shaking my head. "You…you can't…."

"They're orders, sweetheart." He grinned. "Now, what you're going to do is pull the car over and then you're going to follow me."

"Why?" I breathed, looking for a way out. "Why would I do anything you want me to?"

Victor groaned and hung his head for a minute. Then he lifted his head, the smirk was chilling especially with his huge canines. "Because if you don't, I make one little phone call, and we kill your sister."

My heart stopped. "Emma? You….have…have Emma?"

Victor didn't answer my question but gave me another reason to do exactly what he said; "After I finish off Jimmy, of course."

I closed my eyes with a sharp intake of breath….When I opened them, tear-free to my great surprise, I put the car in reverse and backed into the ditch, out of the road. When I finished, I climbed out passenger side door. "What now?"

He grabbed my right forearm and I hissed when his hands closed over the scratches. Victor turned, yanked up my long sleeve and smiled deviously at me. "So….that's how you like it, then?"

I could only shoot him a nasty look as he dragged me further and further from the road. When we reached the spot he'd been looking for, he motioned for me to sit. I did and he pulled out a lethal looking syringe.

"You're going to kill me now, aren't you?" I murmured, wondering if it would hurt. It wasn't any less than what I deserved. At least the letters had been written and delivered to safe hands.

"No. This is a healthy dose of hydrochlorothiazide." He flicked the vial twice to rid it of any bubbles. "It'll slow your heart down so much that it'll take a genius to figure out that you're still alive. This bad boy will knock you flat on your ass."

"Where will I wake up?" I murmured as he wiped the crook of my elbow with alcohol. In my mind, I was back in bed with Logan, his arms around me. I was safe and warm and wanted. I wasn't there with his monster of a brother.

"Three Mile Island." He stuck the needle in and it everything went black.

* * *

**_so, i want to you to know that i looked EVERYWHERE for that myth, but I got nothing. I looked up a wolverine's habitat and they do like mountians like the canadian rockies, but wolverines don't howl...._**

**_and also, i had to watch the part of the movie where Kayla tells Logan what Victor gave her like fifteen times to even guess what te drug was. What i put in the story was as close as i could get, if you know how to really spell it (which mine probably isn't) let me know and I'll change it. _**


	16. The Animal

_**I come bearing the next chapter!! Don't expect the next one for about a week or so because I have a super busy weekend comming up and then classes start next monday so we'll see how it goes. **_

**_BTW, when i write a stroy I always create a playlist. If anyone's interested in this story's playlist, let me know and I'll let you know what it is. This chapter was inspired by The Weepies "World Spins Madly on" and Katy Perry's "Thinking of You". Strange combo...but whatevs!_**

**_Disclaimer: I own nothing_**

* * *

Chapter 16: The Animal

_**"What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up Like a raisin in the sun?... Or does it explode?"~**__**Langston Hughes**_

The darkness was comforting. There were no worries or fears and I just drifted in the all consuming nothingness. It pressed against my ears, my chest, and my legs, almost like a heavy woolen blanket, shielding me from the rest of the world. And for a while, it was a comfort to know that nothing could touch me there. I only took small, shallow breaths like a baby rabbit afraid to make too much noise.

Later (or at least when I thought it might be later, because time ceased to exist) the darkness was not quite so solitary. Emma made a few appearances, drifting ghost-like just in front of me. I saw her as the impetuous six year-old she'd once been; her honey blonde hair blinding in the sunlight. She held her hand out to me as she laughed and laughed and laughed. But the laughter didn't last, like it hadn't in the real world.

Next, she appeared as a somber ten year old in her little black dress with lace on the collar. She stood by the front door of the house in Canmore, tears trailing down her cheeks. There wasn't anything I could do to make this one right.

Then, she was standing in my ruined living room, the room I destroyed three years ago. Emma glanced around, a sneer on her lips, hands on her hips. Still her amber gold hair flashed in the sun that penetrated the window.

"What did you do?" Emma barked.

I couldn't say anything; I just held my hands out to survey the damage. My tongue stuck to the bottom of my mouth.

"Well?" Emma tapped her foot in impatience.

But I had no mouth to speak, no words to say so I just I shook my head. But I tried to reach out and engulf her in my arms; however, she was just out of reach. Then, like she always did in my dreams, Emma turned into a deer. She bounded away into the darkness on her nimble deer feet.

I tried to scream and reach for her again and then I was back in my bed, it was night and Emma was nowhere to be found. A strange gurgling noise escaped my lips and I tried to take a deep breath to calm myself. Next to me, a large warmth shifted and then reached out.

"Babe?" Logan's voice was deep with sleep as sat up next to me "What is it?"

"Night…mare," I wheezed, unable to catch my breath or slow my racing heart. "S-same…one."

He was more awake now and ran his hand in circles on my back. "The deer one?"

I nodded and clutched my chest. "I can't…breathe…" I fell back and closed my eyes. I heard him call my name over and over.

There was a clatter near me. A shout then a snarl. The measured step of military feet against a concrete floor. And then my own erratic and hard breathing.

"Heart rate coming up normally. But hyperventilating…"A cool female voice stated somewhere above me. "Must have been stressed when given the hydrochlorothiazide." There was a small click that echoed off the concrete walls and then a cool hand to match the cool voice pressed against my forehead. "Ms. Silverfox, open your eyes if you can hear me."

I screwed my eyes tight as the light burned against them.

"Ms. Silverfox, I can't help you if you don't help me." She insisted, firm but patient.

I did, blinking against the light. The walls spun and my stomach plunged to the floor, gagging me.

"Take a deep breath, please and try to relax," she was a petite blond but a white blond; no depth, no dimension to the harsh platinum blonde. Her mouth was a grim line but I could see how her lips curled up at the corners as if she wanted to smile. She had a gentle touch despite her cool demeanor; I could almost feel her sadness as she moved above me.

I took a deep breath, this time able to draw in enough air.

The woman pressed her finger to my wrist taking my pulse and counted against the watch on her slender wrist. When she was satisfied, she picked up her clipboard, first removing a small personal recorder, and wrote something down. "Are you nauseous or dizzy at all?"

"Both," I whispered as the room gave another nasty spin. "Where's my sister?"

"She's safe…and so are you," The woman whispered. "For now…"

"What do you mean?" I sat up a little.

She shrugged. "I'm just a doctor, that's all. Stay calm, Ms. Silverfox. I don't want to have to give you a sedative; it could be very dangerous for your heart." She packed her bag and shut the door behind her with a ominous click and then the unmistakable jingle of a lock.

I glanced up, only seeing moss green cell-like walls with no windows. The floors were cement and cold. The cot on which I'd been disposed was property of the United States Army, I read on the tag. Same with the woolen blanket and the pillow. What I wouldn't give to be home… in my familiar bed, under my semi-ruined flannel sheets, Logan next to me as the moon slowly sinks down behind the mountains. It may not have been perfect or easy, but it was the only life I ever wanted. And now, it was just a memory, a piece of a past that couldn't be brought back.

I suddenly thought of all the people I'd left behind: Paul, Dee, Danny and little No-Name….I wondered if Dee had found out, if she'd even gone to the appointment since….My head ached and I couldn't keep my eyes open. I wasn't sure if it was the drugs I'd been given or the weight of missing everyone but I slid down into the harsh wool blanket, the anchor of sleep dragging me back down into the darkness.

* * *

The days took on a shape; I slept when it was dark, woken when the lights came on. Food in all shapes and forms was shoved under my door; I didn't touch much of it. I was let out and led down to a huge room, with a dark glass wall that I assumed was two-way glass so I could be studied. They put me with a few other mutants to test my abilities. I complied because I had nothing else to fight for. Nothing to resist for. Emma was here somewhere, somehow and Logan….I didn't know and a part of me didn't want to know. He would be all right without me, I told myself.

Three days after I'd woken up in that cell, they pushed me into the testing room and there he was….the boy who'd stolen my sister from me standing there eyes wide as the door locked behind me.

Something inside me snapped. The anger I held back, the tears, the rage and the fear all broke through my compliant sheep façade and I lunged at him, pinning him to the wall.

"You bastard!" I screeched. "You stole my sister from me and led her here?! To him?!"

He chuckled. "You don't understand as much as you think you do."

"Don't laugh…" I tightened my grip on him digging my nails into the tender flesh of his neck deep enough to draw blood. "I should make you jump out the nearest five story window, so you can lay there in agony in a broken body before you die." I surprised myself with the freezing tone of my cruel voice.

He snorted in disbelief. "And how are you going to do that?"

I bent closer. "By telling you to."

Jamie laughed.

"Didn't Emmy ever tell you about my powers?" I wondered silkily. "I used to make her do all my chores and serve me lemonade just by touching her," I squeezed and savored his hiss of pain and surprise. "Now, sit down, your forehead against the wall." I pressed my will against his struggling one. For the first time in a very long time, I savored his compliance and his lack of fight as he did as I told him to.

"Well, no wonder she ran from you." Jaime hissed. "I'd run too, if I was worried my sister could tell me to kill myself and I would have to do it."

"Why did you do it?" I asked again. "She trusted you, loved you even and you led her here….?"

Jamie twisted so I could see his face. "The same reason you did," he replied, the guilt now plain on his face. I released him as my anger get go of me. "For my family, Stryker threatened and I caved. Just like you. I know you did this for Emmy." He was still calling her by his nickname for her….I loosened my grip just an inch.

"I…I'd do anything for her…." I stammered.

"I know," he met my stare with a knowing one of his own. "Even if it means throwing someone else under the bus."

I covered my eyes and let go of him entirely. My heart plummeted and I suddenly couldn't breathe. What had I done?

"I saw what Stryker did to him…" Jamie sighed sadly. "Poor bastard."

"What?" I whispered, letting my hands fall. Logan was alive, but in what condition? "What did Stryker do?"

"You don't want to know…" Jamie shuffled his feet. "It…" he winced. "Wasn't…pretty."

I hung my head, letting my hair fall like a curtain around my face in my private grief. "What have I done?" I murmured.

"Emmy…" was all Jamie said and started walking toward the door.

"Wait!" I called after him. "What about Emma?"

Jamie shook his head and returned to my side. "Nobody escapes Three Mile Island, alive anyway." He leaned in closer, so the military men behind the tinted glass couldn't hear. "I promised to work for Stryker…but you should know that the mutants he can control he keeps in cages, the ones he's afraid of, he blackmails….you hold more cards than you think." Jamie straightened, a slight grin playing about his mouth. "If you see Emmy, tell her…" Jamie swallowed hard. "…tell her I am sorry, that I never meant to hurt her."

With that, he returned to the door and waited until someone opened it. He vanished into the labyrinth halls and I never saw him again.

* * *

The next day, I got an even better surprise. Victor was at my door to escort me to that day's test. By his grin, I could tell that Stryker wasn't far off either.

As we walked past a smaller room that I hadn't noticed before, I saw a TV. flickering. I stopped short and realized that it was Logan on the screen. He was submerged in a tank, hooked up to too many tubes to count. And the needles. There were at least ten of them poised and ready to strike.

"No!" I breathed, suddenly unable to find much of a voice. "What is going-?" But then I stopped short when the Stryker onscreen began the procedure.

The needles suddenly glowed white hot and then were submerged in the water. I closed my eyes; I didn't want to see what happened next. Logan may have had a mask on, but I could still hear the screams as the needles bored into him. Somewhere inside, I was screaming too.

I chanced a glance at the screen and saw him thrashing as the needles continued their work, the vats full of silver liquid silver began to empty. I noticed the heart rate monitor flying higher and higher. "Make it stop…" I whispered to Victor. "Please….it's going to kill him…."

But it didn't and while in reality, the procedure was only two minutes top but it dragged on and on until, quite suddenly, Logan stopped thrashing and lay quiet. God….I'd been wrong. They'd done it, they'd killed him.

"No!" I screeched "No! He can't be gone!" I fell down on my knees, head in my hands as I cried for what I'd allowed to happen.

I looked back up at the screen, and still he hadn't moved, he was as peaceful as he'd been the first night we'd spent together. My heart dropped through the floor to the unforgiving earth.

"Oh, please God…." I moaned into my clasped hands. "Please…."

Then, on screen, I heard Stryker order: "Wipe his memory…"

"No!" I cried at the same moment that Logan did.

He always said he was an animal, but I didn't believe it until that moment. He rose up from the water with a sickening primeval roar and slashed with long metal claws at anyone who came near. He slashed the tubes connecting him to that torture chamber and leapt out.

The camera went dark and I remembered where I was and who I was with. Victor's angelic smile reflected in the black TV screen as I stood up again.

"What did you do to him?" I choked out.

"Just an experiment," he shrugged. Apparently, it was no skin off his nose.

I whipped around this time. "For what?"

"To see if the adamantium would stick, to see if he'd survive."

I stood there in shock for a moment before another voice whispered: "And we couldn't have done it without you, dear," Stryker appeared next to Victor. "He wouldn't have gone through with the procedure without thinking you had been murdered…."

I simply stared in shock at him, my mouth unable to work.

"You see," Stryker grinned. "He's the only one who I could safely put through the procedure-"

"You almost killed him!" I roared.

"Ah, but I didn't…" Stryker pointed out. "He survived. And from what I understand, he just destroyed about three million dollars worth of military cars, helicopters and weaponry."

I huffed out a breath. "Well I'm, honestly not surprised at that."

Stryker frowned. "And this is why I have a back-up plan. Victor, loosen your grip. I don't want her to have any bruises, any marks he can see."

Victor relaxed his hold from painful to uncomfortable, growling as he did.

"What do you mean?" I whispered. "Any marks he can see?"

Stryker smiled that chillingly cold smile. "He's probably checking in with a few old friends looking for me. And he will, I'll make sure of it. When he finds his way here…." He opened his white lab coat and there was a revolver.

I snorted. "You think a bullet is going to stop him?! It better be a damn magic bullet!"

"Oh, I think adamantium will stop him long enough for Victor to separate Logan's head from his body…."

"You bastard…" I growled, twisting my fingers into fists while my eyes clouded over with tears. "You lying sonofabitch!" I screeched at him.

Stryker smiled victoriously and waggled his finger in disapproval. "Now, now…is that any way for a lady to speak?"

"Why you-!" I leapt at him but Victor, or course, would not allow any harm to come to his master and his nails dug into my upper arms. But I struggled to get free anyway. "You'll get yours," I threatened. "You will. If it's the last thing I do, I'll make sure you both get yours."

"Careful what you wish for," Victor ran a ragged nail down my cheek. I held back a scream. "You might just get it."

"And I suppose you'll get yours, too?" Stryker dangled something in front of me. A dog tag, new one with a single word stamped into it: "Wolverine."

My knees buckled as my heart turned over itself in anguish. "I guess I will."

* * *

That night, as I had for the past three nights, I fell into the darkness. This time, however, I embraced the dream that descended on me as soon as I closed my eyes.

I cracked one eye open to see that I was back in my bed in Canmore, the flannel sheets; warm and smooth against my skin, and Logan was lying next to me, forehead to forehead, his hand lying halfway between the both of us as if he were reaching out for me.

Despite the peace my home brought (it, after all, had been both my haven and his), shadows flickered across his face. A nightmare wasn't far off. I'd spent enough nights with him to know when one was fast approaching. So, I did the only thing I could; I met him half way. I placed my hand on his. Instantly, his fingers curled around mine, I felt the rough patches and calluses that I knew so well. He woke up smiling sleepily.

"I'm dreaming," I whispered. "Aren't I?"

"I don't know," he shrugged. "Are you?"

"I am," I sighed. "I wish it could last forever, I wish I never had to wake up."

"You can't do that," he replied quietly.

My eyes glazed over with tears so he blurred before me. "I don't know if you'll ever understand or know this after this dream is over, but," I sighed. "I want you to know that I never meant to hurt you…..I never meant for any of this. The only good thing that came from all this mess was the fact that I learned that I love you."

"It's nice to hear every now and again," he reached over and covered my cheek with his hand, running his thumb over my cheekbone. I closed my eyes briefly, memorizing every bit of it. "Go to sleep," he murmured.

"No," I whispered. "Then, I'll wake up and everything will go back. I want to stay here with you forever."

"You can't sleep forever," his eyes were closed again and mine were heading that way too. "You have to wake up…."

I opened my eyes and I was back in my cell on Three Mile Island. Everything I'd seen and done that day hit me all over again and I buried my face in my hands and cried.

* * *

**_Only two chapters and an epilogue left!!!!! _**


	17. The Payment

**_Second to last chapter!!! Most of it is movie dialogue but I altered it a little to fit my version of the story! just so you guys are fore-warned._**

**_Disclaimer: I own nothing._**

* * *

Chapter 17: The Payment.

"_**Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage."**__**Lao Tzu**_

A week passed without anymore incidents. I only left my cell to take quick walks, I refused to be studied. When I was put into the room with the double sided glass, I sat in the farthest corner and did not speak or move until Stryker grew so frustrated with me he'd have Victor return me to my room.

Sadly, I'd caught a few glimpses of Emma, who'd been confined to a cage like a wild animal. I would pause at the wall of windows that looked out at the "kennel" as the guards called it and press my hand to the glass, wishing there was more I could do for her. I could never get her attention when I stood there, but I think she knew, somehow, that I was there.

I was pretty sure another week passed, but I hadn't been out of my room much. And I heard some of the guards whispering and looking worried, casting suspicious glances at me.

There was a sudden shift in the atmosphere around me. Victor snapped more than usual, Stryker grew quiet and pensive, ever busy with his new project; something he called Weapon 11. Meanwhile, I caught up on sleep and returned to my home in Canmore every night in my dreams. It was one of the few things they couldn't take from me.

And then it happened.

A guard came in to wake me in the middle of the night, telling me that Stryker needed me. I swallowed hard and stepped out of the room. This was it. I followed the guard down to one of the entrances and took my place in the shadows, so he wouldn't see me right away and I waited. For a year, a day, a century, I couldn't be sure. It all blurred together until Stryker glanced at the door and then at Victor who hid.

A few days earlier, Stryker sat me down to tell me how it was going to go. I didn't look him in the eye once and felt myself hating him more and more with every passing moment.

"_You are not to speak until I speak to you," Stryker instructed in a chillingly calm voice. "Not a word, a sound. And the only thing you are to say is that we gave you_ _hydrochlorothiazide and that it makes it look like you've flat-lined."_

_How did I get here? I asked myself. How did it come to this?_

"_Kayla?" Stryker's voice was loud in my ear. "Are you listening?"_

_I glanced up, serenely calm. "Yes, I heard you. But I don't see anything to gain in all this…."_

"_This is the last thing I'll ask of you." He smiles at me. "If you do it, then I will let your sister go free and you two can return to that little town of yours and you'll never hear from me again."_

"_I agreed to one of your deals before and look where it's gotten me," I retorted. _

_Stryker leaned so close I could see the bags under his eyes, the strain for restrain. He lifted his hand in one smooth motion and cupped my chin so I had to look him in the eye. "You chose this, Kayla. You could have walked away from everything and you chose this."_

_I had never been so certain of anything in my life until that moment and I knew, in the deep recesses of my mind and soul that I wouldn't get out of this alive. "I know I chose this," I whispered. "And they say you learn from your mistakes. But I guess not."_

I closed my eyes and felt him, rather than saw, come in. It was easier. I held my breath and blocked everything else out until I heard him drop to his knees and whisper: "Who are you?"

It's me! I wanted to scream. I'm here, I'm fine! But I simply opened my eyes and kept my mouth shut, all the while wanting to throw my arms around him, feel his warm strength flow through his arms, smell his smell again and be anywhere but here.

"She's real, old friend," Stryker assured Logan. "Did you really think we'd just let you walk away? You're a dangerous man. We like to keep an eye on dangerous men." He shot me a hard look. "Tell him about the day you died."

I licked my lips and took a deep breath before I repeat like it's a lesson well learned: "They gave me a shot of hydrochlorothiazide. It reduces the heart rate so low it appears you flat-lined."

I felt as though someone had slashed me through the heart when Logan heard the news. A part of me wanted to run to him and tell him how it really happened, how Victor had threatened him and Emma and how I had no choice. What was I supposed to do? He needed to know that I loved him with every bit of my heart that didn't already belong to Emma but I was bound to my silence. I only let my gaze fall to the floor when I wouldn't hold his wounded gaze anymore.

"Oh, don't be angry with her," Stryker chuckled darkly. "She's a credit to your species. Did you know that her sister has diamond hard skin?" He wondered conversationally. "Kayla's mutation is tactile hypnosis. She can influence people as long as she touches them. Quite a useful took in a seduction…"

No…no…the bastard didn't. no, no, no. It was done. All of it was done. The omnipotent grin on Stryker's face is blinding in its triumph. "It was never real, my friend."

Logan bowed his head at that and I nearly screamed. I could see the gears working in Logan's head, the anger, palpable from twenty miles away, clouding his mind and spreading through his veins like a disease. "It was real for me." He growled.

I reached forward to put my hand on Logan's shoulder, to calm him, to tell him "No… It isn't like that… I only love you, you know that…don't let this man take that from you. It's yours." but Stryker saw me and opened his lab coat to reveal the gun stocked with the adamantium bullets, I stopped short, my breath caught in my throat.

"I told you, that if you went down this road you wouldn't like what you found." Stryker hopped off the empty operating table he'd been perched on and walked away.

I couldn't say anything at all. Stryker had taken all my words with him all I was left with were tears and hurt and a heart that on the edge of failing.

"You know that story you told me?" Logan asked at last, his voice ragged with fury and betrayal, cutting me just as effectively as a knife would. "About the man who gets flowers for the moon?"

I nodded as the tears beaded on my eyelashes.

"I had it backwards. I thought you were the moon and I was your wolverine. But you're the trickster, aren't you?" I flinched as though he'd hit me. But it was true. True to my name, I supposed. Fox was always the trickster in the stories. Inside, I thought my heart would explode but I'd live through the pain because that was the torture I deserved.

All the while, Logan's eyes never left mine. "I'm just the fool who got played. And worst part is," Logan growled to himself. "I should have known better. But I ignored my instincts. I ignored what I really am. But that won't ever happen again." He stood, shot me one last baleful look as he passed and was gone.

It was all I could do to not fall to my knees and scream, to follow after him and beg him to listen. But Emma…. "Colonel?" I rasped when I found my voice.

"Not now, Kayla," he waved me off like an inquiring five year old.

"I've done everything you asked!" I growled. "What about my sister? You said if I helped you, you'd let her go…"

"Kayla," he turned around, a sad smile on his face. "It's not as simple as that. Her mutation is quite unique. Quite beautiful. We just need some more time to analyze it-"

I was about to insist that he follow through on the deal when Victor appeared. "You let him go?!"

Stryker waved him off as well. "Victor, please-"

"You can't let him go!" Victor growled.

Stryker shook his head. "You can't beat him."

"Give me the adamantium!"

"The test came back-"

"We had a deal!"

"You'd never survive the operation," Stryker told him quietly.

"I can take anything he can…"

"No you can't!" Stryker seemed on the edge of reason and then calmed down. "You're my favorite soldier, Victor. Be patient. Your time will come."

"He's using us," Victor and Stryker both looked back at me as I ground my teeth.

"No…" Victor whispered.

I started to run towards the prison but Victor grabbed me by the throat before I could get five steps in. He lifted me up by the throat, his face twisted. "How about this time, you die for real?"

I gripped his wrist, focusing all my energy into this command; "Let me go…" I rasped. "Please…Let me go…"

Victor smiled. "Your little mind games don't work on me!" he squeezed and I screamed.

Then suddenly, I heard Logan roaring Victor's name and I landed in a heap when he dropped me.

In a blur, Logan hit Victor sending them both crashing through a row of windows. I curled up on my side to avoid the spraying glass and when I sat up again, they had vanished. I ran toward the stairs, not sparing Stryker another thought. When I reached the next level down, the kennel level, I saw Logan standing there looking at his brother.

"Logan?" I breathed softly, anticipating an angry growl or reprove.

He glanced up, eyes tight with mistrust and that crazy fury I'd never seen before.

"Please…"I whispered everything coming out in a rush. "I'm sorry. For everything. It was real for me too!" When I took a step closer, he didn't take one away from me. "I didn't trick you into loving me…but…" I swallowed the tears back. "They have my sister… they have Emma."

Logan suddenly snapped back to himself again. And I was home. "Where?" Was all he asked.

"This way," I led him to the entrance to the kennels, pausing at the lock until he slices the control panel into scrap metal. As soon as we go through the door, the mutants in the cages stop their pacing to look at us. Their faces were blank, the hope nearly diminished in them as they shuffled back and forth across their floors. And then I saw her bright hair reflecting the light. Emma.

I started to ask Logan how we're going to possibly get them out and then he solved that problem too, slashing the thick padlocks until he'd run out of locks to destroy. He stood at the end of the aisle looking back at Emma's slowly opening door. "Half-Pint?" he called, stepping closer. "Half- Pint? Is that you?"

Emma ran to him and threw her arms around him. Logan was shocked at first, to be seeing her there, for me to be telling the truth and then he wrapped his arms around her as well, telling her that everything would be all right.

"How did you find me?" Emma wondered.

"Your sister," he pointed to me.

Emma pushed herself away from him to look at me. She didn't say anything else until she had run to me and I had my arms around her as well. "Oh baby…" I whispered. "Baby, baby…."

"I'm sorry!" Emma repeated. "I'm so so so sorry!"

"I know, I know you are." I held her back, running my hands over her cheeks and neck, checking her over. "I know. Everything is going to be all right now."

I looked up, realizing that Logan was watching us. Our eyes met and everything went silent for a moment.

I had no words to say how sorry I was or any way for me to convey it to him, the only thing I could do was meet his eyes with no visible fear. Nothing had changed. I still loved him and I knew that somewhere in him, he loved me too.

I didn't expect what he did next; he held his hand out to me, the smile I fell in love with on his lips. We were going to be okay.

I took the offered hand as if nothing had ever happened and felt the warm rough calluses under my hand and I was home. It didn't matter what happened next. Logan and I were together and that was something that nobody could take away because we'd found each other despite everything else.

We ran toward the nearest door, connected hand to hand until the door opened and we skidded to a stop. Instantly, Logan pulled me behind him as a figure emerged in the pre-dawn light.

"Wade?" Logan called. "Wade? What did he do to you?"

But as the figure stepped closer, there was something incredibly wrong about him. He was a bald and sickly looking as a terminal cancer patient with deep purple bruises swimming under his eyes. He was thin but in decent shape and covered in black surgical lines. But what made me grip Logan's arm with terror was the man's mouth. He didn't have one, or if he did, it had been sewn together.

"So Stryker finally found a way to keep you quiet, huh Wade?" Logan called but the man standing before made no sign that he noticed or cared that Logan stood before him. The only thing he did was loudly crack his neck and twin swords slid from his knuckles.

"Shit." Logan cursed under his breath. "Kayla, get the kids out of here…" He murmured to me.

"No," It was stupid of me to argue but I didn't want to lose sight of him again. "No, I'm with you-"

"Go!" he hissed as Emma tugged on my arm again.

"Come on," I urged her and grabbed the nearest kid. We ran back to the kennels looking for another way out only to be halted by a rain of bullets. We ducked into the nearest cage, Emma's skin turning bright and shiny as she covered me from every bullet. Every bullet but one.

At first I didn't even know it had happened. Then the slight buzzing in my side began to bite and I pressed a hand to it. But when I pulled it back, hot and oozing blood was smeared across my hand.

"I can help," a boy's voice told Emma as a wave of nausea passed over me. I knelt down and pressed my head against the cage wall, willing the pain away.

"Kayla?" Suddenly Emma's face swam before me. "Kayla! Come on! Let's go!" She grabbed my arm and yanked.

"No…." I hissed. "No, I've got to stay here."

"But…" Emma glanced over her shoulder at the others who were waiting on us.

"Go." I gripped her arm and infused her with my gift. "Go, I'll be fine. Get them out of here."

Her eyes went wide when she realized what I'd done. But she didn't have a choice but to follow my orders.

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**_Only one more chapter to go!!!!_**

**_Happy reading and reviewing!!_**


	18. The Last

**_So guys, here's the last chapter...It's fairly short but I don't have much else to say. _**

**_BTW, this chapter was inspired by RedJumpsuit Apparatus' "Your Guardian Angel" and Ella Fitzgerald's "E'vry Time We say Goodbye"  
Disclaimer: I own nothing._**

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Chapter 18: The Last

**"**_**Limitless undying love which shines around me like a million suns,  
It calls me on and on across the universe"~ Beatles**_

The pain digs deep as I limp as fast as I can. God, I can't even take three steps without pausing to catch my breath. It's a vicious cycle because every time I stop to breathe deep; the pain in my side is even worse than it was before I stopped.

I can't go any farther and collapse into a heap on the ground as the tears I've tried to keep inside aren't staying there; they trail down my cheeks in rivers until they plink onto my up turned hand. At first I blame the dust but it isn't true.

I don't think I can find Logan in all this mess, with my side like this. All I want is more time… More time, I plead to whatever deity will listen. More time please! Just a little more….

In the distance, I can make out a figure but a sudden wind kicks up the dust and shrouds it from view. A small hope pleads for it to be Victor so he can finish off the job. At least it'll be quick. But a bigger part of my heart, the one that doesn't belong to Emma, tries to tell me that it's Logan. That maybe not all is lost…not yet.

The figure that seemed so far out in the distance comes closer and closer still "Kayla?" the voice fills me with warmth and comfort…for once my reality is better than any dream.

I reach out until Logan is crouched there in front of me. He smiles briefly in relief; his arms already reach out to encircle me, no questions, and no reprimands for what I've done. The tears surge and fall even faster. I don't deserve it.

"Logan…" I sputter. "Please…" I shake my head. "I'm sorry."

He looks questioningly at me until I peel the protective hand away from my side. He smells the blood before he sees it, eyes going wide with fear.

"Kayla," he breathes as I pull him closer. It actually makes me feel a little better to hear him say my name out loud in the familiar rumbling tones. If I close my eyes and imagine, we could be back in Canmore about to go to bed.

"I love you," I whisper against his lips, finding the courage somewhere between his hands reaching for me and the blood spilling from mine. The realization strikes me; this may be the last time I can tell him so. "I'm so cold…"

"I'm going to get you out of here." He replies gruffly, his hands carefully going around my waist and under my knees. "Okay?"

I nod, keeping the tears at bay.

"Easy," he breathes as he lifts me slowly. I whimper as a little spasm cuts through me. "Easy….easy."

I grip so hard to him, I'm afraid to let go. If I let go, I won't make it. I need it; I need him to remind me what I'm fighting for.

He loves me, I tell myself over and over, as we make each step. We're going to be okay. In a flash I can see the plane waiting at the end of the dock. We'll get to a hospital and this pain will go away. Logan will sit with me the whole time. He'll growl at the doctor and the nurses when they suggest he go get a cup of coffee. He won't lose me again, he'll say. Never again.

At night, when they give me the morphine for the pain, he'll curl up next to me, holding me tight to this world. I won't float away. And I'll wake up the next morning and this whole ugly business will be nothing more than drug-induced dreams. We'll find Emma and go back to Canmore, where we belong and everything will be just like before because I'm not ready to give it up yet.

But that rosy future disappears when an evil gunshot rings out. Logan falls to his knees, the sudden movement jolting me and making me scream in pain and fear. Then, there is a second and Logan leaps up amid my cries of: "No, Logan! Don't!" He turns on his attacker, snarling and roaring like a cornered wolf. I know who's cornered him and I scream all the louder.

There are three more shots and then silence. Footsteps pick up again until they're next to me. They aren't Logan's.

The next thing I know, I'm looking up into the barrel of a revolver and Stryker's twisted livid face. There's an ominous click and then…I reach out and grab his ankle.

Stryker, struggling against the command I'm forcing with all my might, puts the gun to his throat.

"I should make you pull the trigger…." I breathe with effort. "But it wouldn't make us any better than you…Throw the gun away." He does. "Walk until your feet bleed." I grip harder, forcing him with every inch of determination. "And then, keep walking!"

I let go and Stryker follows my command without looking back.

I hitch in a deep breath as the pain encases my whole middle. I'd give anything to make it stop and yet…I glance over to see a dark figure lying not twenty feet from me, I don't want to leave him. I don't want to give him up again.

The tears leak freely now as the sun bathes me in the last sunrise I'll ever feel. I let the rays cover me completely, shrouding me in their warmth. Instantly, I'm reminded of being wrapped in Logan's arms on the night he told me that he loved me, his breath warm against my ear, his heartbeat steady and full of life.

I let out a deep breath and realize that I don't hurt so much. And I'm not so cold. Actually, it's as if I've been submerged in a warm bath. My clenched fists relax against the dirt and I exhale again.

There's a brief pain, from the top of my head down to my toes, but it's over before I know it. And quite suddenly, I can't feel the body I am supposed to have. I try hard to cling to my body, try to feel the pain again. I can't. I can't feel anything. No, no, no please! It's not fair! Please! Emma…I need her, she needs me…

_Everything will be all right._ There's a deep comforting voice in the dark. For a brief moment, I see her helping the others into a helicopter. _She's safe. And she will remain so._

There isn't anything I can give you, I say.

_I'm not asking for anything. Emma is safe. Is there something you want her to know?_

Tell her…I breathe hard, try to make the thoughts coherent as I send all my love for her to this source. Tell her I will always love her. Always have. Always will. Nothing will ever change that.

Suddenly I'm alone. My hearing goes in and out a few times before I realize that the world is clouding over. But there's a new voice, familiar and sweet like the wind. It's time, it whispers, becoming more and more like my mother's voice. You'll see them again.

There isn't anything left for me here, nothing holding me back but a tug on my heartstrings for a man who loved me for the remainder of my life. I gave up my life twice for him and now I really will have to leave him.

I glance over to where my tough and tired Wolverine is still unconscious. And I wish I could go to him and wrap my arms around him, tell him that I love him, that I will love him forever. But somewhere in him, I realize, he already knows this.

I let out a deep breath and feel as though I'm a feather that's been dropped from some great height. I float back and forth, back and forth, weaving through the air. And I never hit the ground.

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**_Okay guys... "NOT THE FACE!" and I hope you guys like it....remember I've got an epilogue to put up too! It should be up by late next week possibly early the next week._**


	19. The Beginning

**_Here's the epilogue!!! It took forever to up load, the site hated the format or something, idk...I don't do computer speak._**

**_The insperation for this chapter is the weepies' "Can't Go Back" listen to it during or after.....it's an amazing effect._**

**_ and this is set after X3_**

**_Dislcaimer: I own nothing at all_**

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Epilogue: The Beginning.

_**"Unable are the loved to die, for love is immortality."~**__**Emily Dickinson**_

There's only bad news to be read; no different than any other day, Logan realizes as he flips to the next page. It's full of nothing but murder, war, terrorists…. the world's going to hell in a hand basket.

"What time is it?" A small voice asks next to his elbow.

Logan glances at his watch, but doesn't lower his paper. "Eleven eighteen. Five minutes later than the last time you asked."

"She said they'd be there at eleven," Amara complains, drawing her knees up to her chest. "She's always late!"

"Who?" Logan asked absent-mindedly as he flips to the next page.

"My mom and sisters." Amara replied. "They live in Connecticut. I told you yesterday."

"Right, right. Storm was telling me about it," Apparently Amara's mother, Mrs. Starling, had once been a student here. But it was long before Logan had ever heard of Charles Xavier. So, Logan goes back to his paper, he doesn't know any one by the name Starling. He scans over the headlines about the new American representative to the U.N., Hank McCoy.

Amara rolls her eyes at him and goes back to what she was doing before. Logan lowers the corner of the paper to glance at her; she lies on her stomach on a stone bench, bobbing her head in time with the music and flipping through some teenage magazine.

It's a quiet average Sunday morning, actually. No hurry, no worry; a bunch of the kids have gone home for the weekend. And while Logan was not the first choice babysitter; he didn't mind Amara so much, she wasn't as…insane as some of the younger kids. There was something familiar about the kid, something he couldn't put his finger on.

Not five minutes pass, when a car brake suddenly jars him from the paper. "I think she's here…." He mutters to Amara.

"You just want to see me run up and down the stairs fifteen times," she retorts, turning her iPod up and flips through another page in the magazine. "I'll believe it when I see it."

"Fine." He chuckles as he hears the car park in the courtyard. "Have it your way."

But not two minutes go by before there are two girlish squeals from the door at the patio where Amara and Logan are sitting. Amara jumps up, iPod and magazine forgotten, and she runs toward the two other girls screaming all the way.

The second oldest is a honey blonde with her hair cut into a shaggy bob and the smallest of the three looks no older than twelve and her hair is the same dark shade as Amara's with bangs so long she has to continually shake them out of her eyes. Come to think of it, all three girls have the same deep blue azure eyes. They're familiar somehow but Logan can't put his finger on why.

"My God." There's a new voice at the door way, this familiar too. "Logan?"

Logan puts down his paper now, as the girls laugh and giggle over each other's clothes and hair styles. The woman walking toward him is so familiar, it's making him uncomfortable. She's in her late forties maybe, her blonde hair is shot with silver grey but instead of clashing, it fits her. Logan catches a glimpse of her huge blue eyes in her round face and in his mind he sees those eyes on another woman.

This one has olive skin, freckles across her nose and long curling black hair, so black it shines blue in the dying mountain light. She's smiling, laughing, calling him by name and just as quickly as she's come, she's gone.

"Logan…" Mrs. Starling shakes her head in disbelief. "You look exactly the same."

"Mom," Amara chides. "Didn't you meet Logan last time you where here?"

"No," Mrs. Starling disagrees. "He was away."

"Oh," Amara knows which trip she means. "Well, this is my mom, Emma Starling and my sisters; Irina." She points to the shaggy blonde. "And Kay," the minute brunette.

"Mom," Kay tugs on her mother's sleeve. "Mom, it's the man from the pictures."

Mrs. Starling smiles down at her daughter, smoothing away the long bangs. "Yes, I know. Now, 'Mara, why don't you take your sisters to see Bobby, Kitty and Pieter? I'm sure they'd love to see them? Hm?"

Irina and Amara exchange a glance and drag their younger sister into the house.

When they're gone, Logan watches the woman come to sit across from him. "Do I know you?" he asks quietly.

Her round face falls a little. "The professor said you didn't remember anything." She sighs, digging through her purse. "But I stupidly hoped you would."

"Sorry," he mumbles. "I don't."

"Amara seems to have taken to you," she observes, switching subjects.

"She's a good kid." Logan admits. "Quiet.

"I've always told her that she takes after her aunt. " The woman shoots him a look like there's something he supposed to know or say.

"I wouldn't know," he shrugs.

"No," Mrs. Starling shakes her head. "I think you do, but you can't remember her. I'm surprised, actually. Of all people, you remember Stryker-"

Logan narrows his eyes at her, his hand balling into a fist. "Who the hell are you? How do you know about Stryker?"

Mrs. Starling looks him straight in the eye, and in Logan's mind, the years melt away until she sits before him twenty with bright gold hair, those bright haunting blue eyes and in a t-shirt with multi-colored paint drips on it. "Logan," she leans forward. "It's me…." It's the plea he knows too well; the soft cry for recognition that he cannot give.

"It's Emma…?" She phrases it as a question. "Emma Frost."

"Emma?" The name is surprisingly familiar.

"I got married to the girls' father when I was twenty six, to David Starling."

"How do you know me?" He demands finally.

There are a few tears shining in her eyes before she finally responds: "You loved my sister; Makayla Rose Silverfox. For five years."

Five years? There had been no Makayla he could remember. No Emma either for that matter.

"You saved us both from Stryker, from Three Mile Island in 1979." She goes on. "You loved Kayla and she loved you too."

"Where is your sister now?" he wonders, maybe if he were to see her, it would help.

"Dead." Is the short, stony reply. "She died that day."

He looks up at her, realizing that he's been staring at the table for the last five minutes. Her lower lip quivers and there is a resolve in her face to hold back tears. "Where's your proof?" He demands. If he's going to make her cry, at least there should be a good reason.

"Here," She hands him an envelope with his name written across the front. There's a signature across the back, it's never been opened. "Read it. I'll wait."

Logan rips it open and there is a letter for him written on what appears to be Billie Holiday lyrics to "It Had to Be You".

"_Dear Logan,_

_If you've gotten this letter, it means that I'm no longer with you. For whatever reason; Stryker finally got to me, like I think he will, or your gift has kept you from aging and I've gone on, or you won't forgive me for what I've done to you. I hope you don't rip it up on sight, but I really wouldn't blame you if you did._

_You have to know that I never wanted to hurt you. But I chose this path before I knew who you were, how you are and what a wonderful person you are. I chose it because I had to try to save Emma. She was in trouble and I thought Stryker could help me. I was wrong and now I have to pay the price. But I've never been so sorry in my life. _

_I tried not to lie. It wasn't a trick or a lie that I love you. I do. Completely and forever. Nothing will ever change that. Whatever happens to me, know that I will always love you, always be with you. So don't be sad when I'm gone, you have my love and while it may not change what will happen, it will never leave you no matter where you go, who you become. That is something that Stryker cannot take away, not even death can take from you. It is yours forever._

_In the end, you're the only one for me. The only once I could want and wherever I'll go, I'll wait. I wish I had more beautiful words, but I don't which is why I left you with Billie Holiday and the song that I love so much. _

_Goodbye my Wolverine._

_Love always_

_Kayla."_

Logan looks up from the letter. Emma smiles tearfully as she looks down from the patio at her daughters. "I got the letters when the bank contacted me." She swallows. "She loved us both so much that she gave her life for us."

Logan doesn't say anything only stares at her signature, trying hard to put a face to her name and love. The only thing he sees are bits and pieces, just meaningless flickers of a life that isn't his.

"I held on to your letter for a long time, hoping you'd turn up. You never did. And then the Professor wrote to me last year to tell me that you had finally appeared on the radar again.

"I wasn't sure if I could see you face to face after all these years, but." Emma smiles "I'm glad I did."

"So," Logan finally finds his voice. "Your sister is gone?"

Emma takes a deep breath. "I used to think so. "

"And now?"

"She sacrificed herself for us. It's left its mark on the both of us. In a way….she'll never leave us."

"How on me?"

"She gave you your name, Wolverine." Emma grins. "I named my youngest daughter for her. And," She pulls out some photos and hands them to Logan. "I have these."

In the first one is a picture of just Logan sitting on a house porch. The next, to Logan's surprise, is the dark haired woman he imagined earlier, kissing his cheek and another where the woman and him and are both looking back at the camera. And the last is that same woman sitting on a huge rock next to a turquoise lake.

"Kayla," the name comes unbidden to his lips. But there it is. "Makayla Rose."

Emma's eyes go wide. "Yes. She-"

"Hated being called that." He flips the photo over to read: "Kayla, Grassi Lake, summer 1976." He starts to hand them back but Emma won't have it.

"Keep them. That's your favorite anyway, you told me so." She points to the one of Kayla at the lake. "I don't expect you to remember everything, and I don't know if you really want to. I just thought you should know that she loves you. Very much. Where ever she is." She casts her gaze up to the sky for a moment as she started for the door.

"Where are you going?" He wondered without moving from the table.

She shrugs. "Pay my respects to the professor, Scott and Jean. They were very dear friends; family when I needed it…..I was in China when it happened." She digs something else out of her purse and hands it to him. A business card with the National Geographic logo on the front bearing her name and on the back, an address in Hartford Connecticut. "If you're ever in Connecticut, feel free to stop by. I know Amara would love it and my husband would love to meet you as well." She gives him a real smile.

"Why did you do this?" Logan puts the pictures down. "Why….I don't remember you. I-"

Emma's eyes are bluer in this light. "You loved my sister, and she loved you. You looked out for me, you taught me to change the oil in the Beast, you were there to take of my sister when I couldn't and to me that makes you family. You do what you can for family." She kept walking back into the house.

Later that night, Logan tosses and turns as the nightmares he's suffered since before he could remember recede suddenly. In his dream, he's standing in the doorway of a house on top of a mountain. Behind him the sun is setting and casting a pale gold light into the living room.

"Logan?" The voice that calls his name is a little deep but smooth and sweet. Familiar. "Logan? Baby? Is that you?"

He turns to find the woman in the pictures walking toward him. She has her head cocked to one side as if she was confused about something but she still had a smile on her face. A few black strands fell across her bright blue eyes as she shook her head in disbelief. "God, Baby…you look good."

"Kayla…?" He breathes as she slips her hand across his cheek. She's so close he can smell her perfume; rosehips and spice.

She nods only once. "Yeah, baby. It's me."

"I'm dreaming, aren't I?" He whispers.

Kayla smiles, eyes bluer than the sky. "Yeah, yeah, you are."

"I wish I wasn't…" Logan admits more to himself than to her.

"Baby, don't say that…." Kayla frowned. "Please. You're happy aren't you?"

He nods. "Yeah, I'm happy….I guess….I wish I could remember you…."

She smiled and leaned in close. "You will." She kissed him once before he woke up.

Logan sat up in his bed, hands gripping the sheets. Outside his window, the sky was as blue as it could possibly be.

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_**And it's the end of another story!!! **_

**_I will probably try to finish "The Wedding Date" and then I might be back with a sequal featuring Emma. So put me on Author alert and You'll know!!_**

**_Peace, Happy reading and much love_**

**_The Red Pen of Doom 87!!!!_**


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